


Come if you remember the way

by Teatrolley



Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Boy Squad, Childhood Friends, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Long-Distance Friendship, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mutual Pining, Pining, Texting, so many tags this time, this turned out way sadder than i thought it'd be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-01 23:17:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12714810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teatrolley/pseuds/Teatrolley
Summary: The first time Isak meets Even he’s fourteen, and a moving van is pulling up on the street outside of his house. Four years later he’s standing in an airport with their friends and Even’s parents. Even is going abroad for six months.Or: Isak and Even are childhood friends who always seem to gravitate towards each other. Then everything else happens





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Come if you remember the way](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13917081) by [sunny_witch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunny_witch/pseuds/sunny_witch)



> i wrote the entirety of this in exactly eight days while also writing 10k of my academic work which is. wild. especially since the s4 even fic took me like three weeks to write and i thought i had an intense focus then. idk me and writing are in a very crash and burn thing right now maybe, kind of like we're in one of those foreboding taylor swift songs but just like taylor i'm going to throw myself into it anyway
> 
> this borrows a lot from canon even though it has, like, different themes and shit, bc my au's have to move away from canon with baby steps, apparently. maybe in a few months we'll be in space but for now we're pretty close to where we began, still
> 
> also uh *spoilter alert* but there's more detailed descriptions of their sex in this than in what i usually write but probably not in, like, a sexy way, because i just can't write that, but more in a "it says something about them so we should see it" way. it’s really not graphic though so if you're into that, don't look for it here, despite the rating
> 
> also also *spoiler alert* isak’s mum features quite a lot in this and while it’s not mentioned by name i’ve diagnosed her mi as schizophrenia. now, i did try to do some research but i don’t have nor are close to anyone with that diagnosis and also this doesn’t focus on her so it’s not a very detailed description. tl;dr it might not be the most accurate portrayal you’ll ever read, but hopefully it’s sensible and sensitive
> 
> title from andrew belle's wants what it wants

The first time Isak meets Even he’s fourteen, and a moving van is pulling up on the street outside of his house. Four years later he’s standing in an airport with their friends and Even’s parents. Even is going abroad for six months.

_________

"Remember," Even's mum says, holding onto his cheek, "to listen to the safety video. I know you think it's boring, but it's important, too, and it’s a long flight–"

“Mamma,” Even protests, and everyone else laughs.

They’re standing in Even’s terminal, having just dropped off his two bags. In a moment he will go up the escalators to security, and then he’ll wave goodbye, a little exasperated, probably, but smiling, and it’ll be the last time Isak will see him for a very long time.

He misses him already, which is silly, because he’s standing right here, still. 

Just because it’s silly, doesn’t mean it’s not true.

“I’m jealous,” Magnus says.

“Me, too,” Jonas agrees, just as Mahdi says, “Yeah, same.”

“You have to send us pictures, dude,” Magnus goes on, which Even smiles at, which Isak watches. “And you have to remember to text. You can even do that positivity journal thing _to_ us, that’ll kill two birds with one stone.”

Even chuckles. “You know,” he says, reaching out to give Magnus’s shoulder a squeeze. “You have a lot of the same ideas as my mum.”

Isak and Even’s dad laughs.

“Oh, hush, you,” his mum says, and Even and his dad both snort. “I’m allowed to miss you.”

“Sure,” Even says, squeezing her shoulder, now. “I’ll miss you, too, you know.”

“That better mean you’ll call,” his dad says.

“You’ll get tired of me calling, I’ll do it that much, I promise,” Even says.

“Never.”

They all smile. Even shifts the hand that was squeezing his mother’s shoulder so he can pull her into a half-way embrace, rubbing her back a little.

“Anyway,” he says, then. “I really should get going, soon.”

“Alright,” his mum says, and he pulls her into a full-on hug. After, he goes around the circle, hugging everyone else, too, rubbing Magnus’s back when he reaches him because he always does, and slapping Jonas’s and Mahdi’s.

And then it’s Isak, last one in line, and Even pauses before him. When Isak glances up at him, he tilts his head, smiling, and caresses Isak’s cheek with a thumb. Isak smiles into it.

When they hug, they do it for a long time.

Any other day Isak would be embarrassed at the special treatment, especially when it’s happening in front of everyone else. But it’s already a bit painful to watch Even go, and it’s nice, at least, to have a little bit of proof that they’re something special to Even, too.

Not that they are anything special. Other than best friends.

_________

The first time they talk Isak is fourteen, still, and Even has been moved into the house across from his for the last week or so.

Their rooms are across from each other, windows facing towards one another, and it’s not that Isak is looking but he’s still seen the way Even is in and out, all of the time, never really settling down. Always a flurry of movement, so fast that, by the time you notice he’s in the room, he’s already so far gone you only see his back.

At this point, Isak is already fascinated by it.

He’s hurrying quickly through his room, too, Even is, the time they talk. Isak is sitting at his desk, in front of the window, zoning out when, suddenly, Even sees him and stops in his tracks.

There’s something about that that Isak never forgets. The fact that Even stops in his tracks.

Even grins, then, wide like it’s always been except when it’s not, and then he’s opening his window and gesturing for Isak to do the same. And Isak does.

“Hey,” Even says, excited, by the time both of their windows are open, and then he leans out of his window enough that Isak can reach his out-stretched hand, and shake it. It takes effort, probably, but he does it, anyway, and Isak’s always remembered that, too. “I’m Even.”

“Hi,” Isak says. “Isak.”

“Isak,” Even repeats, smiling, and squeezes his hand. “Hello. It’s good to meet you. I was wondering when I’d get the chance.”

He says it like he means it, and after Isak gets to know him better he figures even more that, probably, he did. He’s just the kind of guy who means stuff like that.

Is it really a wonder, then, that Isak, instantly, wants to be friends with him?

_________

 **Magnus Fossbakken – 16.32** :  
@ Even we miss you already!!

 ** **Mahdi Disi – 16.32****  
dude chill

 **Jonas Noah Vasquez – 16.32** :  
@ Even I hope you know you’ve singlehandedly made sure that mags will be unbearable to be around for the next six months

 **Magnus Fossbakken – 16.33** :  
shut up

 ** **Even Bech Næsheim – 16.34****  
i miss you too guys  
also @ isak i don’t know if you know this but mark zuckerbeg thought i should be able to see that you’ve read these messages and are electing not to say anything  
so much for friendship i guess

 ** **Isak Valtersen – 16.35****  
haha  
nerd  <3

 ** **Even Bech Næsheim – 16.35****  
there we go  
<3

_________

Isak’s only just inside of the door of his room, when Even calls him. Immediately, he picks up.

“Hey,” he says, throwing his jacket to the back of his desk chair, watching Even’s room, empty now, on the other side of his window.

“Okay,” Even says, always starting their conversations like they’re continuations of something, like Isak is the person he thinks to just as much as Even is the person Isak thinks to, sometimes, “so are you ready for this?”

“Shoot,” Isak says.

“Okay, so I just got to the gate, right, and there’s this guy sitting next to me, and the _moment_ I sit down he pulls out his laptop and then he starts playing a movie and, get this, it’s fucking Romeo + Juliet. And he doesn’t even, like, stream it, it’s right there downloaded onto his desktop already.”

“You called me just to tell me that?”

“I just met my soulmate.”

“You can’t both love that movie,” Isak says, “someone needs to be sensible,” and he knows that, if Even we here, he’d be giving Isak a show of his mock-offence.

“Excuse me,” he says, and Isak can hear it, in his voice, even if he can’t see it. “Are you saying I’m not sensible?”

“Have you seen yourself?”

“Shut up.”

They both laugh, together, and Isak’s always liked it when they do that, and he likes it now, too. Likes it whenever they banter with each other because the thing about Even is that he never teases anyone in a way that doesn’t make them feel in on it.

“Wait,” he says, now, because he knows Even will think it funny. “Are you sure he’s out of ear-shoot?”

“God,” Even says, and does snort. “It’s just diss after diss after diss today, huh, do you not think I made sure of it?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t.”

“Okay, thanks, bye–”

“No!” Isak says, laughing into his phone already. On the other end of it, Even chuckles, too. “No, don’t go. Tell me about security, did you get through alright?”

It’s all it takes for Even to be off on another rant. Isak listens, and smiles into his phone the entire time.

It’s just that he likes him so much.

“Okay, we’re being called to the gate now,” Even says, eventually, after they’ve talked for so long that Isak has migrated to his bed. “How interested are you in getting a text from me after I’ve landed on a scale from one to my mother?”

“Maybe your dad,” Isak says.

“Ha,” Even says. “Cool. I’ll text you from the cab, then.”

Isak laughs. “Alright, sure."

“Alright.”

“Have a great flight, then," Isak says.

“Thanks, yeah,” Even says. “Talk to you later, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Alright. Love you. Bye.”

“Bye,” Isak says, and listens to it when Even hangs up with a grin on his face.

He should be used to the giddiness of it all by now, perhaps, or maybe he should be trying a little harder to steel himself against it. But he’s not. It’s too late now and, anyway:

He likes it.

_________

School’s already started for him and the rest of the boys, high school and all, where Even’s classes don’t start for another week and a half or so. That’s the pros of uni in London, and that’s the cons of being a third year at Nissen, and that’s the situation of them, apart from each other’s worlds in more ways than just one.

The next morning Isak tumbles out of bed, a little bit late, rushing to get to school. His dad’s already left, probably, or at least he’s nowhere to be seen, but his mum, too ill right now to go to work, is in the kitchen, still.

“Hi, Mamma,” he says, kisses her cheek hello, and she smiles at him, which means it’s a good day, or a not-too-bad day, and he’s happy for that.

“Pray with me,” she says today, taking his hands in hers and kissing his palms, so he does. He stops with her, even though he’s in a rush, and folds his palms together as he says the words with her that he doesn’t believe in, but she does. 

It's not much, maybe, but it's all he has to give. And, either way, for her, it seems, it's enough.

“Remember your lunch,” she says when they’re done, which means it’s a good and not just a not-too-bad day, so he kisses her cheek goodbye, too.

“Thanks, mum,” he says. “See you later.” 

When he walks out of the door, he’s smiling.

_________

 ** **Isak Valtersen – 08.07****  
so how’s London in the morning?

 ** **Even Bech Næsheim – 08.13****  
cold and wet and lonely  
no, i’m kidding  
i actually have no idea bc the intro thing isn’t until tomorrow so i’ve stayed in my hotel bed  
their roomservice scrambled eggs are good tho  
we should have them when you come visit

 ** **Isak Valtersen – 08.15****  
“we should have them when you come visit”  
you’re aware that i’m broke, right?  
we discussed it

 ** **Even Bech Næsheim – 08.15****  
I was hoping wishful thinking would get me what i want anyway

 ** **Isak Valtersen – 08.15****  
can you hope some money into my bank-account?

 ** **Even Bech Næsheim – 08.15****  
i can try  
anyway  
miss me yet?

 ** **Isak Valtersen – 08.17****  
shhh

 ** **Even Bech Næsheim – 08.17****  
alright, i’ll stop fishing  
i miss you though  
call me later?

 ** **Isak Valtersen – 08.17****  
i will

 ** **Even Bech Næsheim – 08.18****  
<3

_________

He meets up with the rest of the boys in the cafeteria for lunch.

He’s eating a cheese toastie, the kind that Even likes, and Mahdi is wearing the blue beanie of his that Even always compliments, but it’s easier, still, to be here than it is to be home, where Even’s empty room is within his field of view all the time. And it’s easier, too, to be here than it is to be anywhere else with the boys, because Even’s never been in this canteen. So Isak can’t see his ghost in it.

Maybe the intensity with which he misses him is a bit silly, but it’s intense, anyway.

“So,” Magnus says, when they’re all sitting down. “Are we going out on Friday?”

“I’m in,” Mahdi says.

“Me, too,” Jonas agrees.

“Same,” Isak says.

“Alright, party or bar?” Magnus asks and then, suddenly delighted: “Or, wait, is Issy here beginning to get ready to take us to a gay bar or what? Now that Even’s away? It’d be so–”

“Nope,” Isak says, shaking his head and interrupting him before he manages to rile himself up too much.

“Come on.”

“No, no way.”

“Whatever,” Magnus says. And then: “Is he alright, though?”

“Why are you asking _me_?”

“As if he hasn’t already been calling you.”

“As if you haven’t already been calling him.”

“He didn’t text me back until this morning,” Magnus says, and Isak scoffs at the others about him, but on the other side of the table Jonas has put his head in his hands like he always does when they argue. Mahdi is just looking at them, unimpressed. Isak gives them up.

“That means you already know,” he says, back to Magnus.

“Yeah, but you know better than me.”

“So, how is he?” Mahdi asks, interrupting them.

“Pretty chill,” Magnus says.

“Yeah, pretty cool,” Isak agrees.

“So,” Jonas says, up from his hands now, snapping them back to focus. “Friday?”

“Gay bar?”

“ _No_ , Mags, God,” Isak says. “I don’t think you understand the extend to which you’re not a wingman but a cock-blocker.”

“ _What_?” Magnus says. “I’m a hundred percent a great wingman.”

“You’re really not,” Mahdi says, and Jonas is back to sighing but Isak is back to grinning. “Not for chicks, either.”

“Guys!” Jonas says, exasperated, and everyone chuckles. “God, you’re like children, am I your mum, or what? What are we going to do about Friday?”

“There’s a party at UiO.”

“How are we going to get in without Even’s student license?”

“I have a copy,” Isak says, and ignores the way that Jonas frowns at him, a little suspiciously, at that.

“Okay,” Magnus says, clapping his hands together like he’s a judge with a hammer, and they’ve just made their final verdict. “That’s the plan, then.”

“Deal,” Mahdi says. “That’s the plan.”

_________

He’s been out to their friends for about two years, at this point.

The first time he comes out it’s to Even, like everything else is, and it’s not just him who’s doing it, they both are.

Well.

It’s him first, and then it’s Even, too, and only later does Isak find out that he’s the first one Even comes out to, as well, and that maybe the ease with which he said it wasn’t what he really felt but, rather, designed for Isak’s sake. That’s another thing he always remembers.

Here’s how it happens, then:

Isak is sitting at his desk when Even comes home from somewhere, quick as a forest fire like always, and turns on the light, letting the yellow hue of it spill out on the rooftop just under his window. Just as Isak looks up from his homework Even looks through the window, to him, and when their eyes meet they smile, and nod out their helloes.

Even fishes out his phone, then, of his back pocket, and holds it up to show it to Isak through their windows before he dips his chin to watch it as he types. A moment later, Isak’s phone rings.

“Hey,” he says and, just as he always does, Even goes straight into the story he wants to tell:

“Guess what,” he says, “Sonja and I just made up,” and it’s not the first time they’ve done that, so it’s stopped breaking Isak’s heart as much as it used to do. Instead of feeling bad, then, he just smiles.

“That’s great,” he says. “You happy?”

“Hm,” Even confirms. “So when’s _your_ next date?”

He’s already smiling when he says it, and the thing about him is that he never mocks, only teases, and the thing about him is that his smile turns into laughter, the moment Isak meets his eyes and rolls his own as he gives him the finger.

“No, just kidding,” he says. “You can do and not do whatever the fuck you want, including not dating anyone, especially if you’re not really that excited about them. Or it.”

And it’s just that Isak is tired, and that he’s been looking at boys since he was thirteen, and that lying all the time is draining everything out of him, and it’s just that Even is the kindest person he knows, and about the only person he trusts, completely, so:

“You always say them,” he says, and knows already which conversation he’s starting by doing it, but knows, too, that it’s one he wants to start. Even smiles at him, pauses everything for a little bit to just do that, and then he reaches out to open his window. A moment later, Isak does the same.

“I do always say them,” Even says, once they can hear each other without their phones, but he says it into the phone, anyway, and Isak’s cheeks are warm with anxiety but cooled down from the breeze in the air. “Should I say him?”

Isak doesn’t know how he knows, only know that he’s cleverer than Isak is, probably, and better than Isak is, for sure, and it takes him a while but, eventually, he nods.

“No one else knows,” he says, a whisper now, and Even is still smiling.

“Take your time,” he says, and then: “I’m not out either.”

Maybe he doesn’t know it, or maybe he knows it exactly, how, later, the nonchalance with which he offers up this piece of information will become the thing that Isak clings to, in his journey through coming out to the rest of their friends, too. Clings to, because it reminds him that this is a big deal but that it’s also not. That he can say it, and nothing will change.

Even later, of course, he figures out that it’s the kind of thing that makes everything change, but in the good way. That saying it out loud is the kind of thing that brings honesty into his life, and emotional intimacy, and the kind of thing that means that he experiences the world differently than his straight friends do, but that saying it out loud is the kind of thing that lets him explain that difference, and bridge the gap.

But in that moment. In that moment Even’s nonchalance is exactly what he needs.

“What?” Isak says, and Even smiles and explains, _I like boys and girls, well, everyone, really,_ and then he says, “It’s fine,” and Isak will cling to that later, too. “You’re fine.”

“Yeah?” Isak asks, still unsure of it at this point, and Even nods.

“Yeah,” he says, and then, in the breeze under the early evening sky: “It’s all fine.”

_________

That evening Isak sits on his desk chair, not doing his homework, watching the very same space between their windows where it happened that night and, a little nostalgically, smiles.

“Hey,” Even says, picking up on the third ring of Isak’s call. “Do you know that we’re talking more now than we were when I was still in Oslo?”

“Oh, I’m just doing this to check in on you,” Isak says, “don’t read into it,” and Even snorts.

“No, why are you calling?” he says, then. “Just wanted to hear my voice?”

“Kind of,” Isak says, and does it on purpose. It’s never an accident when he slips out little honesties like that. It’s something he monitors, carefully, slipping his defences back only when he sees fit. Somehow though, with Even, he sees fit a lot. “Actually I was just sitting and watching your room through my window and, you know, thinking of how really fucking weird it looks when it doesn’t have you in it.”

“So what you’re saying is that my parents haven’t turned it into a gym yet?” Even asks, and Isak snorts and hides his smile in his palm even though Even can’t see it.

“Give it another day and we’ll see,” he says, and Even snorts, too.

Still, Isak has always liked Even’s room. It feels lived in. Loved in. There are Star Wars posters on the wall along with Even’s own drawings, clothes everywhere, a guitar on the floor. There’s a deodorant on the desk almost always, an empty cup in the windowsill, a half-read book thrown on his bed or his sketchbook, lying open on a fresh cartoon.

There’s his positivity journal, placed under another book even though he writes in it at least twice a day, and Isak’s never asked why this one, out of all of his things, is private, but he respects it.

Then there’s the TV, and all of the DVD’s under it. The first time Isak visits his room, at fourteen, he frowns, confused, and asks what’s up with them.

“I like to have physical copies of my films,” Even answers, then. “It reassures me that they’re real.”

It’s the first time he says something that makes Isak pause a moment, thrown off a little by the weirdness of it. It’s not until later that he learns of Even’s brain, and everything it does to fuck him over sometimes, but even without the explanation he accepts the answer, however strange it is. And then he gets used to watching DVD’s again.

“True,” Even says, now, and then: “But, anyway, if I’d known all it would take to make you go sentimental on me was going abroad, I would have done it much earlier.”

“One of these days I am going to hang up, you know,” Isak says, and Even giggles.

“Aren’t you going to ask me how my day was since this morning?” he asks, then, and it’s the kind of thing that’s always made Isak go soft for him. He does now, too, smiling into the palm of his hand once again.

“Okay,” he says. “How was your day since this morning?”

It’s all it takes, sometimes, and it’s all it takes today, too, before Even is off, talking about how he went sight-seeing and met a nice barista and had a wonderful time. He’s back in his hotel now, he says, so after he’s done with his stories they watch a movie, _Ghostbusters_ , per Isak’s request, and sync up their streams when they do. They talk throughout it all.

Even always knows these little facts about every movie, even if it’s something he hasn’t watched before, and he tells them, to Isak, who listens. Always listens, because he always wants to know what Even has to say and, coincidentally, Even seems to always want to know what he has to say, too.

Maybe that’s what made him destined for the fall.

_________

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 00.47**  
[screenshot of the history of their call: 2hr27min]  
good thing this is on wifi or i’d be screwed  
anyway you fell asleep on me so i hung up  
i hope you were lying comfortably. wouldn’t want to be the reason your neck hurts tomorrow  
tonight was nice  
sleep well, Is  <3

_________

They go to the party on Friday, Isak and the boys, and there’s a boy, there, who smiles at him and flirts a little. He’s pretty and funny and interested, it seems, and he’s nice.

And Isak doesn’t kiss him.

_________

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 10.32**  
so give me the friday deets, guys  
anyone hook up with anyone?  
besides the one with the girlfriend, i assume

 **Mahdi Disi – 10.35**  
you’re chatting to him right now

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 10.36**  
nice!!  
good?  
and anyone else?

 **Magnus Fossbakken – 10.36**  
i’m getting closer

 **Mahdi Disi – 10.36**  
very good

 **Magnus Fossbakken – 10.36**  
stop bragging

 **Jonas Noah Vasquez – 10.36**  
stop fighting

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 10.37**  
sounds great, both of you  
isak?  
how about you?

 **Magnus Fossbakken – 10.37**  
almost

 **Isak Valtersen – 10.37**  
no  
and shut up, mags

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 10.37**  
not almost?

 **Isak Valtersen – 10.39**  
no, not almost  
not at all

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and so we begin
> 
> this is pretty much written already so i'll update maybe. every other day? idk i'm not the one here who's got their life under control
> 
> do shoot me a lil comment if u wanna


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome back! enjoy your reading!

Isak is there when Even first starts talking of going abroad in his third semester. Isak is there, too, later, when Even looks over the flights and he’s there, even, when Even sits around his kitchen table with his parents and buys them.

There are four tickets. The one that will lead him there, and the one that will lead him back, permanently, but in-between: two tickets promising his return for a week, around the start of November.

That’s what Isak is counting down to: Halloween.

_________

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 18.32**  
so you know your friend sana?

 **Isak Valtersen – 18.43**  
yes, i do, in fact, know my friend sana  
what about her?

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 18.45**  
well, guess what

 **Isak Valtersen – 18.45**  
you’re in love with her

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 18.45**  
yes, i’m in love with her  
no  
her brother is here  
elias

 **Isak Valtersen – 18.46**  
oh, really?  
wow  
coincidence

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 18.46**  
he’s cool!

 **Isak Valtersen – 18.47**  
if i tell sana you said that she’ll never talk to you again  
but awesome  
how did you find out?

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 18.48**  
okay so i have a few flatmates, right, but two of them are these guys called mikael and mutta. mutta knows elias, and elias knows these other two guys, yousef and adam  
so what i’m saying is that i’m in a muslim boyband now

 **Isak Valtersen – 18.48**  
i only want to hear more of this if you’re going to tell me that you’re getting 90s justin timberlake hair

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 18.48**  
i’m never talking to you again  
but actually, they’re really cool  
you’d like them if you met them  
the mikael guy is really hot

 **Isak Valtersen – 18.52**  
oh wow  
you gonna do something about it?

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 18.52**  
you know i’m not

 **Isak Valtersen – 18.52**  
because?

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 18.54**  
did you forget that i’ve never come on to a boy before and that it terrifies me?

 **Isak Valtersen – 18.54**  
oh, that  
you know, i thought you being older was supposed to mean you could give me tips and stuff, but that doesn’t really work if you don’t have your shit together, either

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 18.55**  
no, it doesn’t  
guess you’re gonna have to learn by doing

 **Isak Valtersen – 18.56**  
sexy  
i think by now i’ve kind of reached the limit of what i can learn on my own

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 18.57**  
oh, you went there  
you know i’m eternally grateful london doesn’t have one of those american dorm situations of two people per room  
can you even imagine?  
talk about sexual frustration

 **Isak Valtersen – 18.57**  
you’d find a way

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 18.57**  
you say that very confidentially  
what are you up to, huh?

 **Isak Valtersen – 18.57**  
stop talking

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 18.57**  
alright  
but no shame, you know

 **Isak Valtersen – 18.58**  
yeah  
i know

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 18.58**  
anyway, back to the point of it all, which is?

 **Isak Valtersen – 18.58**  
you’re about to learn that you can’t really sing when you’re thrown out of the band?

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 18.59**  
1) fuck off and 2) no. the point is that akon’s lonely is no longer fitting to my life

 **Isak Valtersen – 18.59**  
you’re such an idiot

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 18.59**  
thank you, rude boy  
I love you too

_________

Even is the first person Isak’s ever wanted to have sex with.

He’s fifteen, the first time it happens, and it’s not that he doesn’t know about sex already, and it’s not that he hasn’t already had his hands down his own pants, but he’s never really looked at someone else, before, and wanted to have sex with them more than he’s feared it.

It’s because he sees a condom lying around on Even’s desk.

He just can’t get it out of his head. It’s clear evidence, right there, that Even is a sexual person who has sex with people, or at least with himself, and Isak can’t stop thinking about it. Maybe he’s not actually ready for Even to touch him, at this point and, either way, Even never does, but when Isak is alone, at night: then it’s Even he’s thinking of. Even kissing him, mouth, neck, nipple, lower stomach, inner thigh, and–

It scares the shit out of him.

It scares him, because he doesn’t want women at all, he wants _men_ , wants to have sex with men so badly, he wants to have sex with _Even_ so badly, so _so_ badly, but he shouldn’t.

That’s at first, though. Later, then, he’s sixteen and Even is eighteen, and they’re in his room, together, watching a movie cuddled up on his bed, when Isak asks if he can borrow his phone.

“Sure,” Even says, but then: “No, wait. Give it to me first.”

Isak frowns at him, confused, but does as he says, slipping out of his grasp as he does. “Why?” he asks, as Even takes a moment to look through the phone, angling it away from him.

“Because there’s porn on it,” he says, casually, before he, apparently satisfied with his work, hands the phone over. “Can’t have your young eyes scarred by that.”

“I’m sixteen,” Isak says, and Even smiles.

“I know,” he says. “I was kidding. Just thought maybe you didn’t want to know me that well, if you know what I mean.”

Isak does, and he’s wrong, because it’s all Isak wants to know, but he doesn’t say that. Instead, he frowns at the phone again, still so taken aback by the casual nature with which Even talks about sex, and the idea of sex being something that Isak wants, even when he knows that who Isak wants to do it with is other boys. Even if he might suspect that who Isak wants to do it with is him.

“Sorry,” Even says, and it’s only then that Isak realises he hasn’t spoken at all. “Did that make you uncomfortable?”

“No,” Isak says. “No. I just– I’ve just never talked about it with anyone before.”

“Really?” Even says. Isak shrugs. “Well. It’s perfectly natural, you know, it doesn’t have to be a big deal. Everyone does it. But, you know,” he goes on, “some of the gay porn,” and he says it just like that, like it’s not a big deal at all. “Some of it can be a bit aggressive. But I promise you that’s not what actual sex will be like. It’s much nicer than porn makes it out to be.”

“Yeah?” Isak asks, and Even nods.

“Yeah,” he says.

Isak doesn’t know how Even always knows the exact thing he needs to hear. Maybe it’s that he’s been through the same, or maybe he’s just very good at putting himself in Isak’s shoes or, perhaps, it’s just that they’re that good friends.

Either way it takes a little while but, eventually, what Even says that night is what frees him. He stops being afraid of his desire, or ashamed of it, and starts speaking up when the other boys discuss their crushes or who they find attractive because, if they can do it, why can’t he, too?

He doesn’t talk to Even about it the same amount, but it’s not because he’s ashamed of it, anymore. It’s just that Even kind of remains the person that he wants to have sex with the most, and is, thus, the person that he kind of has to avoid thinking too much about sex in relation to, to remain functioning.

Of course, it’s not just sex he wants with Even, it’s everything. And if he’s honest he doesn’t really see that changing anytime soon.

_________

“So how’s Mikael?” he asks Even, that night, when Even calls him.

“Oh, shut up,” Even says, but Isak can hear him smiling. “You know I was going to maybe Skype you guys with them so you could all be introduced, but I can’t do that if you’re going to reveal my embarrassing friend crush on him.”

“It’s a friend crush now?”

“Hm,” Even confirms. “We hung out today, he’s really nice. Funny, you know, we have a lot of things in common. Sweet.”

“Cool,” Isak says.

“Yeah, it is. He reminds me a bit of you, actually.”

“Oh–” Isak breaks off, smiling. “Because I’m so sweet, too?” he asks, and Even laughs at that, in a private sort of way that makes Isak’s whole heart go haywire.

“Yeah,” he says. “Sweeter than anyone.”

Isak closes his eyes. He’s lying in his bed, today, under the covers because it’s late, and he’s used to wanting Even in ways he doesn’t have him, so he never thought he’d miss him like this; a little bit desperate, at least when it’s late at night and the stars are out. But he does.

“All the stories I tell them seem to be about you,” Even goes on, a whisper now like he can tell where Isak’s mind went, or like he feels it, too, so:

“I miss you,” Isak whispers, and presses the phone closer to his ear to properly hear the way it makes Even breathe. “I didn’t think I’d feel it like this.”

“No?” Even asks, and Isak shakes his head even though Even can’t see him. “I did.”

He’d think it cruel if he thought in any way that Even says these things to lead him on, but he doesn’t, Isak is sure of it. Either he doesn’t know, despite all of their past, and is just like that. Or, and this is the option that Isak hardly dares to hope for, but hopes for anyway:

Or, he means them. Exactly as what Isak wants them to mean.

_________

Actually, Isak is beginning to become a little bit fed up with it.

He just can’t really go around fancying Even forever, can he? At this point it’s been years, and you can only really keep on pining like that for so long. Which is why he, at lunch, for maybe the first time in his life, finds himself agreeing with Magnus.

“Wait,” Magnus is already saying, to Mahdi, when Isak joins them. “Did you get her number?”

“Well,” Mahdi says, “I gave her mine, you know, to give her the choice, and she just texted me.”

“Oh,” Magnus says, and as he does, Isak greets them all with a handshake. “So are you excited?” he goes on, slapping Isak’s hand back absentmindedly. “Do you like her?”

“Yeah,” Mahdi says. “She was cool.”

“Nice,” Magnus says, just as Jonas says, “That’s awesome, man.”

“You gonna ask her on a date?” Isak asks.

“I think so, yeah.”

“Oh, it’s that serious,” Magnus says.

“Well, she was cool.”

“That’s so nice,” Magnus says, and then, folding his arms in front of his chest. “Does this mean I’m going to be the only one left who doesn’t have someone?”

“Uh?” Isak says, sending him a look. “What about me?”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“What?” Isak says, but Magnus just raises his brows and fixes him with a look, arms still folded in front of his chest.

“Do you know,” he says, “how _little_ of a move it would take either of you to make for the two of you to happen? We’re talking literally a kiss on the cheek and there’d be wedding bells ringing.”

“Fuck off,” Isak says, and knows perfectly well that the fact that he’s not even the least bit confused about who or what Magnus is talking about kind of sends the opposite signal. “That’s not true.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Magnus says, exasperated. “Are you literally just going to pine until you’re both eighty, or what?”

“I’m not pining,” Isak says, but now everyone, not just Magnus, is sending him looks, and he’s beginning to think he’s not really going to get out of this one. “Okay,” he says. “So maybe I’m pining a little bit. _But_ –”

“Ha!” Magnus says, interrupting him. “You said it! Guys, we have to celebrate, this is the biggest day of Isak’s life–”

“Shut up,” Isak says. “It’s complicated.”

“ _It’s complicated_ ,” Magnus copies, as Jonas says, “Why?”

“Why is it complicated?” Isak asks.

“Yeah. So you’re friends, sure, but on the very very off chance that he doesn’t like you back, he’s a cool dude, and the two of you are tight. You’d survive it.”

“Exactly,” Magnus chimes in. “Think of it like this: Either it’s a few awkward weeks,” and now he’s holding up his right hand, like he’s showing Isak the two options, “and then at least you can move on, and in a year or so you can laugh about it. Or,” he goes on, and now he’s holding up the other hand. “You get to shag him this Halloween.”

“I hate you so much,” Isak says.

“But?” Magnus raises his brows at him. “I’m right.”

“He is right,” Mahdi says, and Jonas nods along, too. Isak rolls his eyes because, God, they really are going to pester him like this and, God, they really are right.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay?”

“Okay,” he repeats, sighing. “Maybe I’ll… try making a move–”

“Yes!” Magnus yells, excitedly. “Fucking finally.”

“Oh, don’t shout it, everyone is looking.”

“Let them look, man, it’s been three fucking years.”

“Don’t get this excited yet, we don’t even know if he’ll say yes to anything.”

“Fat chance he won’t,” Magnus says.

“He’s right,” Mahdi says, and Jonas nods along.

“He really is, Is.”

Isak sighs, again. The first time he realises that he really, really, _really_ likes Even he’s just turned fifteen and they’re lying on his bed, Isak’s head on Even’s chest, and Even’s hand carding through his hair. They’re watching a movie that Even takes it upon himself to explain to death, when, suddenly, he makes a joke that makes himself laugh.

It’s the most endearing thing Isak’s ever seen. He’s already been interested for a while, but he feels gone for him, then.

The second time he realises it it’s because Even is kissing Sonja in his room, where Isak can see it, and it makes Isak’s entire chest feel broken, but the third time it’s because they’ve headed into a coffee-shop for Isak to use the bathroom and because Even, when Isak comes out of there, hands him one of their freshly baked cookies, just bought, and says, “I thought you might like to try this.”

It’s been so long.

It’s been so long, and it doesn’t feel like it’s going to stop anytime soon, and Isak: Isak never wanted anything before he wanted Even, and he never got anything either, hasn’t even gotten Even despite the way they've been dancing around this for years, likely both fully in the know, but now:

Now he really, really hopes that they’re right.

_________

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 14.33**  
so you guys don’t know this yet but i’ve met my new soulmates and i’m leaving you to start a boyband with them  
i was thinking we could share custody of isak but if you don’t agree i’m prepared to take you to court

 **Isak Valtersen – 14.34**  
you’re the fucking worst

 **Magnus Fossbakken – 14.35**  
who are you leaving us for?  
also the one who leaves gives up the right to custody that’s the arrangement

 **Isak Valtersen – 14.35**  
don’t indulge him

 **Mahdi Disi – 14.35**  
if you leaving makes these groupchats more bearable then i’m into it

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 14.36**  
i’m wounded

 **Jonas Noah Vasquez – 14.36**  
once again i must be the one to remind you to stay on track  
who are your new soulmates?

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 14.37**  
one of them is sana’s brother and the other is my flatmate and the rest of them are their, now our, friends  
we’re six people  
they’re all muslim so i think they have me in the group as their token white boy

 **Jonas Noah Vasquez – 14.37**  
are they nice?

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 14.38**  
very nice. one of them, mikael, you’d really like  
thinks capitalism is shit, too

 **Isak Valtersen – 14.39**  
i’m going to start keeping a diary of everything you say about mikael and show it to him so he can see that you’re obsessed

 ** **Even Bech Næsheim – 14.39****  
the only one i’m obsessed with is you

 **Magnus Fossbakken – 14.39**  
wow

 **Isak Valtersen – 14.40**  
oh, don’t do that in the groupchat  
don’t do it where mags can see it, at least

 **Magnus Fossbakken – 14.40**  
fuck you

 ** **Even Bech Næsheim – 14.41****  
oh, right, sorry  
(pst @ mags:  <3)

 **Isak Valtersen – 14.41**  
bye

 ** **Even Bech Næsheim – 14.42****  
anyway, i miss you guys, can’t wait to see you for halloween

 **Magnus Fossbakken – 14.42**  
oh we definitely cannot wait to see you for halloween either

 **Isak Valtersen – 14.42**  
really, seriously, bye

 **Jonas Noah Vasquez – 14.43**  
let’s all give isak a break and go back to discussing what sana’s brother is doing in London

 **Isak Valtersen – 14.43**  
thank you, i love you

 ** **Even Bech Næsheim – 14.43****  
what about me?

 **Isak Valtersen – 14.43**  
nevermind, actually  
goodbye

_________

Isak is sixteen once their group is formed.

He knows Jonas before he knows any of the other boys, including Even. Meets him on the first day of secondary school because they share the first letter of their last names, and never looks back. The rest of them don’t come into his life until he’s at his first year at Nissen and it’s the first time, then, that he’s a part of a group.

A week or so into October he meets Even’s new friends for the first time.

They’re hanging out at Jonas’s place, all of them, when Even texts them in the groupchat to ask if they’ve got a minute, and five or so minutes later they’re all sitting in front of Jonas’s laptop, waiting for Even’s incoming Skype-call.

And then, when it comes and they pick up, all of Even’s new friends are there, on the other end of it, too.

Even introduces them all, first his new friends to them, and then them to his new friends. He reaches Isak last.

“And that’s Isak,” he says, when he, eventually, does. “The guy you say I’m always talking about.”

Everyone laughs, even Isak, and it’s funny, it is, but the bigger part of Isak is screaming, now, screaming, _please, please, please, please, please mean it like I want you to mean it_ , and hoping that Even can hear it and will abide.

“Sana’s bio buddy,” Elias says, which draws Isak back to reality and reminds him why Elias is a familiar face.

“That’s me,” he says.

“She’s doing okay?”

“Better than anyone else in that class, so yeah. Besides me, of course.”

Even smiles at that, a little private thing, as the rest of them chuckle and Mahdi snorts, and Isak only sees it because he’s looking but, then again, he always is.

“Dude,” the guy who Even introduced as Adam says, then, “you talk to her every day, you know how she’s doing it.”

“Well,” Elias says. “Excuse me while I care.”

Everyone smiles again.

They talk for a while, then, and Isak starts to understand why Even likes these guys and, particularly, why Even likes Mikael. So maybe Even thinks it’s Isak and Mikael who’s alike, but Isak thinks it’s really Mikael and him. They seem to like the same things, anyway, and Even was right: he’s both funny and kind, and Isak would be jealous, really, if not for the fact that Mikael’s hands are intertwined with the hands of the guy who’s sitting behind him, and if not for the fact that Even is one of the only people who’ve ever cared for Isak so loudly not even Isak could miss it.

“Bro,” Mikael says, at some point, to Even. “You’re, like, the only one out of all of us who cares enough to do all of their readings. It’s both impressive and also the least cool thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m never going to introduce you to anyone ever again, if you’re going to keep dissing me,” Even says, but Mikael and the rest of the boys just laugh at him, delighted, and actually Isak isn’t jealous at all, but happy, that Even has found people in London who like him the way he deserves to be liked.

While they continue talking Adam leans in over Mikael’s shoulder, their hands still intertwined, and whispers something in his ear that makes him grin. He shifts, then, upwards, and whispers something back into Adam’s ear, and Adam grins, too, before he leans in to kiss Mikael’s cheek.

It’s not that Isak’s never seen two boys kissing each other’s cheeks before. It’s just he hasn’t really seen it on anyone who’s religious.

The image plays in his mind for the rest of the day.

_________

The moment he steps through his front door he knows that there’s been a fight.

He didn’t always know how to pick up on this; the subtle shift in the air, the fast and quiet changings of moods. When he was younger his dad still kissed his mother’s cheek in the morning, but he doesn’t anymore, and it’s changed everything about how their lives work.

His mum is sitting in an armchair in the living room, looking tired but not gone. It’s been a long time since she stopped trying to hide their fights from him, or a long time since it stopped working, but she reaches out for him today, still, and gives his cheek a kiss hello.

“Hi, sweetheart,” she says, “have a good day?” and he so wishes he could make things easier for her, but he can’t. When he tries to sit on her armrest she says, “Don’t sit there, baby, it’s occupied,” and he doesn’t get angry at her for that, like his father does now, just closes his eyes and kisses her temple.

“Sorry, Mamma,” he says. “I wasn’t looking. I’ll go make us some tea, okay?”

She nods, so he does, and then he calls for some take-away, too. His dad’s in the house, probably, locked in the study or something other, but Isak doesn’t go to check, because it doesn’t fucking matter where he is when it’s not here.

After the foods arrived he sits in the chair, with her, eating it, and after they’re done she reaches up to card a hand through his hair, smiling at him when it makes his eyes drop closed with his exhaustion from the day. He leans his head on her shoulder, then, and she kisses the top of it.

She’s always been religious, even before the hallucinations, and, in fact, he doesn’t even think they have anything to do with each other. It’s just what she believes, and it didn’t used to scare him, and it doesn’t really now, either, except for the fact that he doesn’t know if she would still be kissing the top of his head if she knew he wanted to kiss other boys.

He tries not to think about it too much. It breaks his heart.

_________

 **Isak Valtersen – 19.12**  
call me tonight?  
when you’re on your own, you know

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 19.23**  
sure  
promise  
everything okay?

 **Isak Valtersen – 19.24**  
yeah  
just wanna hear about your day and stuff

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 19.24**  
i love you  
it’ll be a few hours or so before i’m alone but i’ll call  
is that chill?

 **Isak Valtersen – 19.24**  
that’s chill

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 19.24**  
<3  
talk to you later

 **Isak Valtersen – 19.24**  
<3

_________

He’s lying on his bed, looking at these old plastic stars that he has on his ceiling from when he was a child and everything was easier, when Even calls. He keeps watching them.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” Even copies, for once not jumping directly into a story or something other. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Isak says. “I mean, I don’t really want to talk about it, so, for all intents and purposes…”

“You’re fine, and we’ll ignore it?” Even asks.

“Yeah,” Isak says. “Can we?”

“Sure. If it helps.”

“Hm,” Isak confirms. “So.”

“So?”

“It was nice seeing your friends today.”

“Yeah,” Even says. “They’re nice, right?”

“Very,” Isak agrees, and then, because he’s been thinking about it all day and he’ll ask at some point anyway, so it might as well be now: “Mikael and Adam are dating?”

“Yeah,” Even says. “Honestly, they’re all very tactile, so it took me a while to figure it out, but they are. Nice to see, right?”

“Yeah,” Isak agrees, because it is. It’s everything, really.

“I came out to them,” Even says.

“Oh?”

“Hm. Told them about the bipolar, too, you know. It’s been really nice, actually, to just… have it out there from the beginning.”

“Yeah,” Isak says. He can relate, to some of it, and the parts that he can’t relate to he understands, through research and knowing Even and listening to him, when he speaks. “It’s been a while, with that?”

“It has,” Even agrees. “Mum’s very proud of me.” Isak didn’t expect to smile much tonight, but it’s funny, so he does. “Says I’m managing it well,” Even goes on, and then, in a quiet, conspiratorial tone that Isak’s always liked because it makes him feel like they’re a team, like it’s them against the world: “She doesn’t know I’ve been smoking, though.”

Isak laughs, this time, because of course he does. He always does when Even’s around.

“Has she ever known?” he asks.

“No,” Even says. “But–”

“You’re so dumb,” Isak says, and Even snorts.

“Thank you,” he says, and Isak can hear the smile in his voice.

“Hm,” he says, and smiles, too, and they can’t see each other but Isak thinks maybe they can feel it, the way they’re both on either side of this small bit of ocean, smiling into an empty room because of each other. He fiddles with a thread on his duvet cover a little. Then: “Anyway. I, uh… It was nice seeing you earlier. Like, _seeing_ you, I mean.”

“Wanna do it again?” Even asks. “We could facetime?”

“Yeah,” Isak says. “That’s be nice.”

So they do.

Even isn’t on his bed, like Isak is, but in his windowsill, moonlight hitting his cheekbones from above like he found his light deliberately. Like he wants to look good for Isak, and it’s not true, but Isak smiles at the idea of it, anyway, as he turns to his side on his bed and watches him. Just watches him.

It’s Even who, eventually, reaches out to touch the screen on his phone where Isak knows his face would be, maybe where his cheek would be, and it makes him blush, a little, just to think of it.

“Mikael thinks you’re pretty,” Even says, then, wearing the fondest smile, and maybe it’s the fact that Isak recognises it as fond that gives him the courage to say what he says next:

“And you?” It’s just a whisper, but he says it.

“I think you’re hot,” Even says, and Isak smiles, but he doesn’t laugh.

“Even,” he says.

“When I come home I just want to be with you, I just– Can I?” Even says, and he’s _so_ –

He’s so.

“Yeah,” Isak says, “you can,” and it makes Even grin, and Isak’s always been confused that all he has to do to make Even look like that is say something kind, but since it is he’s vowed to do it more.

“Okay,” Even says.

“Okay.”

“Maybe our Halloween costumes can match,” Even goes on, still grinning, like he’s trying to make Isak laugh, and Isak wants to kiss him so much, and he’s so sad tonight, so so sad, and Even is trying so hard to make it better but life is hard, sometimes, it’s just really hard, so:

“Please don’t get back together with Sonja this time,” he whispers, because they’ve had breaks and still gone back to each other before, and it would kill him, this time, and he says that, too: “Please don’t,” he says. “I couldn’t bear it.”

“Isak–” Even says, and Isak realises that he’s close to crying.

“Sorry,” he says, “I shouldn’t–”

“Isak,” Even repeats. “I don’t like it when I make you sad.”

“You’re not making me sad.”

“No?” Even asks.

“No, I just– God, I’m sorry,” Isak says, running a hand over his face. “I didn’t mean to go all moody on you, I’m just having a bad day. God. Let’s talk about something else.”

“You can be sad–”

“I don’t wanna be sad.” He sighs, again. “Sorry. I just wanna forget about it. I wanna think of something else.”

“Okay,” Even says, and then, as if he’s just had an idea: “Okay, hold on.”

Bringing his phone into his room with him he grabs something from his desk before he moves to his bed, throwing himself onto it. He settles his phone against something, his pillow, maybe, so he has both hands free while it remains upright, and then he holds up the thing he was getting from his desk. It’s his positivity journal.

Thumbing through it he eventually settles on a page somewhere in the middle, and clears his throat.

“So,” he says, and then, in a voice like he’s about to read Isak a story: “Positivity journal of Even Bech Næsheim. October fourteenth. Twenty-seventeen.” He glances up to Isak, briefly, and then back down again, and Isak realises what he’s doing. “One–”

“Even, you don’t have to do this.”

“Shh,” Even says, waving a hand in the air as if to wave Isak’s worry away. “Today’s been a good day for me, so just listen. Alright?”

After a moment of being watched, Isak nods.

“Okay. So. One: had a really good wank this morning.”

Isak laughs, loud and surprised, despite himself, and Even glances up to grin at him through the screen, looking delighted.

“It does not say that,” Isak says, and knows already before he does it that it’ll make Even give him a show of his mock-offence. It does.

“Sure it does,” Even says, with an offended hand to his chest. Then he reaches down, covers half of the page with his palm, and turns it to the camera to show Isak the part where it, indeed, says exactly what he just said. “See?”

“You’re so silly,” Isak says.

“It brightened my day, it goes in there, that’s the rule, and that shit is vital sometimes,” Even says, and then, still pretending to be offended. “Now stop complaining, I’m trying to lighten your mood, not to let you go all grumpy on me.”

“Okay, whatever,” Isak says, and watches as Even settles in again, grabs the journal to open it more firmly in his lap, and clears his throat once more.

“Two,” he says. “Introduced my new friends to my best friends.” He glances up at Isak. “That’s you guys, by the way,” he says, in a normal voice, before going back to the reading one: “They got along, which was nice, because I’d really like to keep these new guys in my life.”

Isak smiles, fondly.

“Three,” Even goes on. “Speaking of, I’m reminded of how well it’s going just being honest with people from the get-go, and of how many people have experiences that are similar to mine or know someone who does. The guys have all been so nice about this fucking illness, and it really helps me feel like I can lead a perfectly normal life,” he says, and it’s not until this point that Isak truly understands the gravity of what Even is trying to give him right now. The honesty of it.

“Parentheses,” he goes on. “At future me, I know I’m not supposed to swear in this but give me a break.”

He glances up at Isak, smiling, and Isak smiles back, but mostly he’s listening, now. Even’s expression goes sober before he licks his lips, and turns the page over.

“Four,” he says. “Isak asked me to call him and sent me a heart, and I know it’s one of the sillier things to write in this, but it did make me happy, so I’m going to put it down anyway.”

Again, he glances up at Isak, the same earnest smile on his face, and Isak doesn’t say anything but watches, as he reaches out to grab a pen from his bedside table and uses his teeth to pull the cap off before spitting it out onto the duvet.

The next thing he writes as he says it:

“Five: Speaking of, Isak is listening to this right now, and he’s smiling.” Again, he glances up to send Isak a smile. “Maybe this journal is good material for a comedy set,” he says, and Isak laughs, but it’s getting a little teary. Even tilts his head at him, fond, before he dips his chin to go on: “Anyway. I like being able to make people smile.”

There’s a pause, in which he doesn’t look up, this time, and then, as if this part is important:

“Especially him.”

After he’s done writing he lifts the journal again, towards the camera, showing Isak the added point, and Isak knows that if moving on is something he could ever do, then he wants to save himself from it. He doesn’t want to live in a world in which he’s not in love with this boy. So:

“I love you,” he says, and means it in every way it can be meant. Even smiles, and then, briefly, fishes out the pen again.

“Isak said I love you to me,” he recites, pretending to write it down, pen not hitting the page, and then: “No, I’m kidding.” And Isak rolls his eyes, but he smiles. “I love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoot me a comment in the comments?
> 
> also get hyped just in general bc next to this i'm trying to work on a christmas thing and i think it's gonna be good. adios! have a good day/evening


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: i'll post this every other day  
> me: disappears entirely instead  
> oops
> 
> enjoy your reading!

A little over two weeks later he’s waiting to pick Even up at the airport.

A few days before he’s due to arrive Isak texts his parents and asks to come with them to pick him up. Thankfully, they accept. So now he’s here, tripping on his feet, glancing between the clock on his phone, the announcement board, and the escalator that Even will come down on. Not all the time, but with pretty regular intervals, his heart beats a little too fast for his body. Not all the time, but often enough that he’s used to it by now.

It’s just that it’s been _so_ long. It’s been so, so long, not long in the sense of the two months since Even left this airport last, but long in the sense of the years and years and fucking years that Isak’s been wanting to be with him, but now– _today_ –

He’s going to try.

Even won’t be looking for him, because Isak’s managed to keep it a secret that he’s even here, but Isak is looking for him, just like he always is, and then: he sees him. Coming down the escalator, shoes first, skinny jeans, t-shirt, hoodie, and then:

Him.

Isak is hugging him before he even knows he’s moved.

“Woah,” Even says, dropping his bags with the force of it, but then: He hugs back. Does it tightly, so tightly, and God, Isak has missed this. Missed the way Even’s arms sneak around him, one around his waist and one around his shoulder, warm and firm, not afraid to pull him in. Missed Even’s chest, pressed against his, and Even’s smell, so so present when he gets to press his face into the crook of Even's neck and breathe. Just breathe. Even smells warm, today, and of old cologne, and Even seems to be smelling him back, now, or at least he presses his nose into his hair. “Hey, you.”

It makes Isak want to cry, and Isak want to laugh, and it makes Isak feel everything, like he’s only now discovered what emotions are, so:

“Surprise,” he says, and smiles at it when Even laughs, and then tries to pull away to watch him.

“No, wait,” Even says, and pulls him in even closer, and Isak wants to laughs at that, too, and this time he does, into Even’s neck. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

“Of course I’m here,” he says, and this time Even allows him to pull back, so they can watch each other. He smiles then, and tilts his head like he’s fond, and when he reaches out to caress Isak’s cheek with his thumb, just like he did the last time they were here, Isak reaches up to hold onto his wrist, and knows with absolute certainty that Even wants to kiss him back. “I’ve missed you.”

Even snorts, at that, and then he laughs, and Isak laughs, too, because this is silly, it really is, and they both shake their heads at each other, foreheads pressed together before, in tandem, they pull each other back in.

“Oh, God,” Even says, rubbing his back, and Isak is more in love with him than he can say. “I’ve missed you, too.”

_________

At first, they hang out with his parents.

It’s the kind of thing you have to do, of course, when you’re a young guy home from abroad, and Isak doesn’t mind, really. He likes them, in fact, and he sits with them, around their kitchen island, listening to Even’s stories and them, teasing him.

Later, however, it’s evening, and after a shower Even stands in his room before his mirror, shirtless, and does his hair while Isak is sitting on his bed. Watching.

He spends ages on it, Even does, patting it down and adjusting it, and Isak thinks he’s ridiculous because, actually, it makes absolutely no difference to how he looked when he first put the product in. He’s always been like this, though, meticulous with the things he actually cares about, and, actually, maybe that’s one of the reasons Isak likes him so much.

“So,” Even says, eventually, turning around to face him. “Does this look good?”

“Do you need to impress anyone?” Isak asks, and watches the way it makes Even smile.

“Maybe.”

“Oh?” Isak says. “Who? Mags?”

Even snorts. “You think Mags would like this?” he asks, gesturing to himself, and as he does, Isak gets off the bed and steps up to him, closer.

“I think Mags would like anything as long as it was you doing it,” he says.

“Hm,” Even says, quiet now, and they’re barely half a meter apart. “Does it impress you?”

“What, Mags liking anything you do?”

“No, the hair.”

“Oh,” Isak says. “Sure.”

“Sure?”

Isak watches him, and he’s tired of hiding things, actually, tired of playing games, and he wants Even to know, wants him to know so badly, so: “You know it does.”

Their eyes meet when he says it, and Even’s hardly widen at all, just soften, like he knew all the time that this is where they were heading, and it’s what gives Isak the courage to reach out and touch the zipper of his hoodie, dipping his chin to look at it as he pulls Even closer and then, to glance back up, the two of them so close Even’s breath’s ghosting over his lips and their noses touch, and then, to–

Close his eyes as Even’s phone rings.

“Goddammit,” Even says, pulling away to fetch his phone, and Isak turns into the wall, pressing his forehead to it as he tries to compose himself for a bit. “Hi, Mags.”

And of fucking course.

Isak shakes his head again before squaring his shoulders and turning away from the wall to find Even again, who catches his eye and rolls his own before he winks. Exhaling, Isak leans back against the wall and stays there until Even has hung up again.

“So,” he says, putting his phone back in his pocket and coming in closer. “Mags wants us to come over right now.”

“Let’s kill him.”

Even laughs, shaking his head, and leans in to kiss both of his cheeks and his forehead, once. “Later,” he says, before pulling the door to his room open for them, and gesturing for Isak to go first.

_Later_ , Isak thinks. Later can’t come soon enough.

_________

At the party they’re pulled apart, first by the guys who want to hear every single story that Even’s just told his parents and who Even repeats the stories to, happily, and then by the general commotion of the party’s comings and goings. Which is why, an hour or so into the party’s actual beginning, Isak is standing in the kitchen, frustrated out of his mind, when Jonas follows him in there, going to the fridge for a beer.

“So have you done it?” he asks, popping the bottle top off it.

“No,” Isak says and, just as he does, Magnus enters the room, too.

“Dude!” he says, “have you done it yet?” and Isak really think he’s to blame for at least half of the frustration he’s feeling right now, so:

“Does it look like I’ve done it?”

“Alright, _excuse_ me.”

“So–” Mahdi says, coming into the room after the rest of them, too, and Magnus makes a cut-it-out gesture in front of his neck.

“Don’t ask him if he’s done it yet, he hasn’t, and he’s pissy about it.”

“Shut up–”

“I was going to say that, Is, Even is looking for you.”

“Oh.”

As if it was planned Even walks into the room at that exact moment, making everyone turn to stare at him, which makes Even stop in his tracks and frown.

“Uh,” he says. “What’s up? Any reason you’re all hanging out in the kitchen without me?”

“We’re not,” Isak says, which Even raises his brows at, sceptically.

“Right,” Jonas says. “I need to, uh… do… a thing.”

“Oh, yeah,” Mahdi says. “Me, too.”

“Yeah,” Magnus says. “Yeah, I’m, uh, a part of that, so… bye.”

And then they’re gone.

Isak watches them leaving, before he turns back to Even, who’s looking at him with his lips pressed together in a barely contained smile, the kind that’s bleeding into his eyes anyway, like so many of his smiles are, and shaking his head at them. Isak keeps watching him then, as he comes in closer, slowly. Together, they lick their lips, and that makes Even’s smile break out the rest of the way, which makes Isak grin, too.

“What have you told them exactly?” Even asks, so close now that Isak has to lift his chin to watch him, so close now that their foreheads are nearly touching, and Isak reaches up to hold onto his shoulder which makes him lean in the rest of the way for their foreheads to touch.

“Oh, all kinds of things,” Isak says, but says it to Even’s lips, and watches it when he smiles. Then glances back up to Even’s eyes to find them sparkling, and realises that Even has him completely crowded up against the fridge now, arms bent next to his head, supporting him as he leans in close, and that Even is looking at his lips, too, breathing heavily enough that his breaths hit Isak’s skin in slow, long puffs.

“Well,” Even says, “I came in here to ask you to dance,” and Isak kisses him.

It’s exactly as wonderful as he’s thought it would be.

At first it’s the relief from tension that makes him let out this _sound_ as he stumbles into Even, unguarded and surprised, and then it’s the fact that it feels so _good_ and then–

“I–” he starts, not really knowing what he’s intending to say, but Even kisses him back before he can finish it.

It’s hungrier, this, than Isak’s kiss, but it’s exactly as hungry as Isak feels. Even’s hands are on his cheeks, his tongue in his mouth, and Isak draws him in closer and buries his hands in his hair, draws him closer but not close enough because nothing is. He turns them around then, so he’s the one pressing Even up against the fridge, kisses him and kisses him, because he wants, _God_ , he wants– he wants Even even closer, wants to crawl on him or crawl into him or sink to his knees right here, or–

“Even–”

“Fuck, can we go? Do you want–?”

“Yeah,” Isak says, “back to yours, back–” but stops speaking to kiss him some more, and God, this is, this is–

This is a little bit funny, actually, and when they pull apart he’s trying not to giggle and failing.

“Don’t laugh at me,” Even says, leaning against his temple and breathing heavily, but he’s laughing, too.

“Sorry,” Isak says, but now he’s done it, and instead of continuing the kiss he has to hide his face in Even’s shoulder, shaking his head, as he tries to muffle his laughter. “Sorry.” He pulls away to kiss him again, the both of them giggling into it. “You wanna go?”

“Mm–hm. Do you?”

“Oh,” Isak says. “More than anything, yeah.”

The both of them laugh again.

_________

On the way to the tram Even stops to kiss him, several times, up against brick walls or lampposts and Isak smiles into it every time.

When they file into the tram, eventually, they sit next to each other and then, on the seat between them, their fingers meet. Isak reaches out with his fingertips to touch Even’s, caressing and intertwining, and doesn’t know if the way it makes his whole chest giddy is because he’s touch-starved or because he’s in love.

After they’ve smiled at each other about it, Isak reaches out to take Even’s hand and, then, places it on his inner thigh, high enough up that it takes only a second for him to go breathless with it, and Even smiles at him about that, too.

“Like this?” he leans in to ask in a whisper, after Isak’s let go of his hand, and then rubs circles into his skin, teasingly, as Isak holds onto his bicep and hides his face in his shoulder and nods. “You’re killing me.”

“You’ll kill me if you stop.”

Even chuckles, at that, so Isak smiles into his shoulder, too.

The moment Even’s locked the door to his room behind him, Isak is on him again, kissing him while grabbing onto his hair, desperate, the tram-ride having teased him so much he’s about to go delirious with the desire for Even to touch him.

It’s Even, then, who walks them towards his bed as he kisses Isak back, hands in his hair, too, and then it’s Isak who nudges him down onto it until he can sit astride his lap. When he reaches down to take his shirt off, Even reaches out to help him and, after that, they work together on getting Even’s shirt off, too. It’s Isak who throws it to the floor.

“I can’t–” he says, when he’s unbuttoned his jeans, too, and is realising that he won’t be able to get them off while on top of Even, but Even just chuckles at him as he rolls off to lie on his back as he pulls and kicks them off. “Hold on.”

“Help me when you’re done,” Even says, unbuttoning his jeans, too, so Isak crawls to the end of the bed to help pull them off for him, before crawling back into Even’s outstretched arms.

Even is grinning, looking up at him, pushing the hair out of his face with a touch so tender it makes Isak close his eyes and follow it. When he opens his eyes again, Even’s face has gone soft, all melted at the edges, and when he pulls Isak back down for a kiss it’s the first time it’s unhurried and slow.

“What do you want?” he asks then, in a whisper, and Isak reaches out to touch his lower lip. Even watches him, then kisses his wrist, kisses him, turns them around and, on top of Isak now, kisses from his neck to his chest. “Mm?”

“Yeah.”

“Two letters and my mouth?”

“Shut up.”

“You know, I was kind of hoping you’d go all romantic on me and just say _you_ ,” Even says, and, when he looks up from where he’s kissing Isak’s chest to grin at him, Isak rolls his eyes, but then pulls him back up to kiss him again.

“I do want you,” he whispers, and Even grins impossibly wider, looking so _happy_ , and it’s blowing Isak’s mind that it’s because of him.

“I want you, too,” he says, and Isak hides his head in his palms when he grins because he needs a moment of not seeing Even look at him like that to compose again. Even kisses his hands then, instead of him, and that makes him need even more time behind the privacy of them.

“Okay,” he says then, bringing his hands back to Even’s hair, and Even nods against his forehead so their noses touch.

“Alright,” he says, kissing him once. “Try again?”

“Hm,” Isak says. “Try again.”

Even kisses down his chest then, spends ages everywhere that’s not quite where Isak wants him, but makes his breath come out in heavy, long puffs when it doesn’t come out as broken, desperate noises that he’s trying to muffle by biting his lip. Then Even spends ages where he really wants him, too.

When he, eventually, comes back up to kiss Isak’s lips, he tastes of him, and that’s almost enough to make Isak want to go again.

“So, scale from one to ten?” Even asks then, and if Isak forgot for even a second that it was him he’s doing this with, he’d remember it now.

“Eleven,” he says.

“Oh, wow.”

“No, I mean, it should be a scale from zero to ten or one to eleven or it has no midpoint,” Isak jokes, grinning already halfway through when Even shoves him away and gives him a show of his mock-offence.

“There’s just no mercy with you, is there?” he asks so, to make up for it, Isak does him back, and that’s almost just as good as the other part, because he’s been waiting for this for so damn long, too. Been waiting to feel the planes of Even’s body, to feel his muscles moving, to smell him and touch him and be touched by him, and he can’t quite believe that getting is as good as wanting, but it is.

When he comes back up to kiss Even, Even smiles and cards a hand through his hair as he kisses him back, his cheeks, his forehead, his eyelid, his nose, his lips, and then:

“Thank you.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Isak copies, rolling his eyes, and Even is chuckling again.

“What?” he says. “Bedside manners.”

Isak shakes his head but kisses him again, kisses him and kisses him before rolling off him to lie besides him, instead, and kisses him from there, too, as Even caresses his cheek with his thumb, like always.

“It was my pleasure, really,” he says, making them both giggle again, and then: “Welcome home.”

_________

**Magnus Fossbakken – 00.23**  
so?

**Jonas Noah Vasquez – 00.25**  
at the risk of being too invested in your sex life, i agree with mags  
so?

**Mahdi Disi – 00.26**  
no details please  
but i agree  
so?

**Isak Valtersen – 01.49**  
you’re all creepy  
but uh  
yep

**Jonas Noah Vasquez – 01.51**  
yep?

**Isak Valtersen – 01.51**  
yep

**Magnus Fossbakken – 01.51**  
fucking yes!!

**Mahdi Disi – 01.51**  
congrats bro

**Jonas Noah Vasquez – 01.51**  
happy for you, Is  
both of you

**Isak Valtersen – 01.52**  
<3  
night, boys

**Jonas Noah Vasquez – 01:52**  
<3  
night

_________

**Even Bech Næsheim – 02.34**  
<3

**Isak Valtersen – 10.11**  
<3

**Even Bech Næsheim – 10.12**  
morning  <3

**Isak Valtersen – 10.12**  
where are you?

**Even Bech Næsheim – 10.12**  
downstairs  
coming up with tea and toast in a second  
i mean, coffee for you  
and tea for me

**Isak Valtersen – 10.13**  
your parents don’t want us to join them?

**Even Bech Næsheim – 10.13**  
i mean they do, but i managed to get us out of it for today  
being twenty is always a good argument there

**Isak Valtersen – 10.13**  
i bet

**Even Bech Næsheim – 10.14**  
yeah  
sorry i wasn’t there when you woke up  
i was hoping i could have all of this ready before you did

**Isak Valtersen – 10.14**  
i can pretend to go back to sleep?

**Even Bech Næsheim – 10.15**  
actually, can you?  
no, i’m kidding  
drinks are done now so i’ll be up in a sec

**Isak Valtersen – 10.15**  
okay  
see you in a bit then  
<3

**Even Bech Næsheim – 10.15**  
<3

_________

They have a week.

That first day, after Even comes back to bed, they talk about it. First he enters, pushing the door open with his shoulder as he carries things, cups and a plate, in his hands. Isak is already sitting up in the bed, duvet cocooned around his legs and lower half of his chest, looking at his phone, but when he hears Even coming he puts it down and watches him, instead.

Their eyes meet, then, and they smile. Even stops in his tracks.

“Hey, you,” he says, quietly, standing over by the door. Just watching. Just watching, eyes soft and melted.

“Hey,” Isak says, and none of them move. None of them move, but they both keep looking. Then:

“Uh.” Even looks at the things in his hands, before coming in closer. “So there’s eggs. I was thinking we would share a plate. And,” he goes on, bending his knees by the bed and angling himself so Isak is able to take the cup that smells like coffee from his hands. “For you.”

“Thank you,” Isak says, and blows on the coffee in his cup, embraced by his palms. Even nods at him as he places his own cup on his bedside table before he joins him on the bed and reaches out to touch his knee through the duvet as he crosses his legs under himself. Again, they smile at each other, more smiling and more silence, before Even, on a chuckle, grabs both of Isak’s knees to steady himself as he leans in to kiss Isak’s cheek.

“So,” he says, when he’s pulled back.

“So.”

“Did you sleep well?”

“Hm,” Isak says. “Really well.”

“I figured,” Even says. “You were drooling, so–”

“Shut up.”

They grin at each other, again. Isak’s never done this before, the morning after, so he doesn’t know if it’s normal to feel as giddy as this, or as nervous as this, or to feel everything as much as he’s feeling it right now, his whole chest alive with emotions and activity. So alive, in fact, that he’s getting a little breathless. Not the kind of breathless he was last night. But breathless none the less.

Maybe it’s the fact that he’s feeling so much right now that makes him unable to say much, too busy processing everything that’s happening inside of him, but Even doesn’t seem to mind. He just smiles, lips pressed together like he’s trying to contain it, eyes just as fond as Isak thinks his are. It’s a relief, at least, to recognise that: the fondness.

Eventually they’ve been silent for so long, staring at each other, that one of them must break, but to Isak’s surprise it’s Even who does it, shaking his head and chuckling, before he leans in closer.

“Isak,” he says, licking his lips, and Isak watches it, mesmerised.

“Hm?”

“Can I kiss you?”

“Yeah,” Isak says, and Even does. Even kisses him, and keeps kissing him, removing the plate from in-between them to scoot in closer, smiling into the kiss at that, and then kisses him and kisses him and kisses him some more. It’s not like it was yesterday but slower, this time, instead, like this is the main act. Which it is with him, sometimes, Isak knows enough to know.

When they pull apart Even’s skin is pink around his lips. Isak touches them, breathless, before dipping in to kiss him again, just a little. Even smiles into it.

“So,” he says, when Isak pulls away, but keeps their foreheads leaned together.

“So?”

“We’re doing this?” he asks. “Us, I mean, I– And when I’m in London, too?”

“Yeah,” Isak says. “If you want. I–”

“Do you?”

“Yeah.” He says it quickly but then, nodding into their touch so their noses dance together with it: “Yeah.”

“Me, too,” Even says, quietly, and Isak smiles.

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

This time, when they kiss, they both grin into it. When they pull apart Even clears his throat, and that makes Isak grin, too.

“Right,” Even says, settling back down across from Isak. “So–”

“Your phone keeps buzzing,” Isak says, because he’s just now returning to himself enough to notice that that’s what that sound is, and Even looks at it, before he reaches out to grab it and checks it.

“Oh,” he says, snorting. “It’s the London boys. I kind of, uh… told them I’d try making a move.”

“Oh, really?” Isak says, grinning, and they’re back, now, to the kind of teasing they’ve always done. “Did you tell them you got lucky?”

“Hm,” Even says, grinning, too.

“I told our guys about us, too,” Isak says. “Last night.”

“Oh?”

“They helped convince me to make a move, too.”

“We should thank them,” Even says, and Isak snorts.

“I think they’ve thanked themselves enough,” he says. “Or congratulated themselves, at least.”

Even chuckles. “Do you think they had bets?”

“I didn’t even think of that,” Isak says, and Even laughs again. “God. Let’s hope not.”

“Did you tell them you rated me eleven out of ten?”

“That is not what happened,” Isak says, but invites Even in when he shifts to move in closer.

“I think subtextually that’s what happened,” Even says, their faces close enough for their noses to touch again, and Isak looks at his lips.

“I don’t know,” he says.

“You don’t know?”

“Maybe you should try again, so I can collect more data?” he says, and smiles when Even turns his head away to grin before he goes back in, kissing Isak’s cheek right by his mouth.

“I wanna try again,” he says, and then Isak is the one to kiss him, briefly, before Even pulls away like he’s teasing.

“Me, too.”

“Hm?” Even says.

“Mm-hm,” Isak confirms, and thinks Even is going to kiss him, again, but he doesn’t. Instead he pulls away, all the way back to his own spot on the bed, with a grin on his face.

“Good,” he says, grinning, and Isak just shakes his head, resining himself to the wait. “Now eat your eggs.”

_________

So they have this week and they have each other and they have sex, now, within the realm of things they can do together, so they do it, all the time. When they’re not doing that, however, holed up in Even’s room, they hang out in the living room with Even’s parents, and when they’re not doing that, they hang out with the boys.

On Monday all of them skip school to go to the skate part. Even shakes his hand with Jonas’s and Mahdi’s, and then hugs Magnus, for the longest time, until Isak says, “Are you leaving me for him, or?” and a little bit after that.

“That’s Even’s hoodie?” Jonas says, coming over to stand besides him an hour or so into the whole thing, and Isak doesn’t want to hide anything ever again, so:

“Yeah,” he says, and Jonas sends him a smile.

On Tuesday afternoon they’re in the kitchen, making lunch, when Even’s mum says, “Don’t you need a refill before going back?” and Even nods.

“Yeah,” he says, “I’ve ordered it. Just have to pick it up,” and then: “Wait. Mum?”

“Hm?” she says.

“Can I borrow the car?”

“To go the pharmacy?”

“Yeah. And teach Isak how to drive.”

“Wow,” Isak says. “Hold on a minute. I did not consent to that.”

“Shh,” Even says, grinning at him. “Mum? Please?”

“Don’t make Isak do anything he doesn’t want to do, baby,” she says, and Isak watches it as Even rolls his eyes at her while she’s not looking, that mixture of fond and exasperated that he’s been with both of his parents since he turned around eighteen, and revels in having the kind of knowledge of him that makes stuff like this predictable.

“But?” Even asks, and she fixes him with a look and sighs, but then nods.

“Sure,” she says. “The keys are in the bowl in the hallway.”

“Thanks, mum,” he says, getting up to kiss her cheek before he turns to Isak, grinning, and winks.

The thing is, Isak isn’t going to let Even try and teach him how to drive, he really isn’t, but then Even drags him to the pharmacy with him and puts an arm around him while they wait for the pharmacist to get his meds, and then: he kisses Isak’s temple, even though they're in public. So Isak reaches up to the hand Even has around his shoulder and intertwines his own with it, and Even kisses his temple again.

“Thank you,” he says, when the pharmacist re-enters with his meds, and lets go of Isak to fish his card out and pay for it.

“You’re welcome,” she says. “You’re cute togehter.”

“Oh,” Even says, looking back to Isak with a grin on his face, and Isak raises his brows at him. “Thanks. Isn’t he just the prettiest?”

“Don’t answer that,” Isak tells her, and, luckily, she listens to him.

“Anyway,” Even says, pulling his card back out of the machine and putting it back in his wallet, before he puts that back in the pocket of his jacket. “Thanks, again. Have a nice rest of your day.” And then, to Isak, outside of the shop: “Look. My best friends. Can you hold them?”

“I thought I was your best friend?” Isak asks, as Even unlocks the car and they crawl in on opposite sides.

“Hm,” Even says, as he closes the door and puts his seatbelt on, after which he turns the car on and shifts the gear. “Guess I have two best friends. Them to keep me sane, and you to drive me wild.” He’s looking behind himself, distracted, trying to pull out of their parking, as he speaks. “Well. Actually, you keep me sane most of the time, it’s just right now it’s all kind of happening up here,” he goes on, waving to a spot near the roof of the car, as he looks to Isak with a smile, “with the intensity level.”

“Will you be fine?” Isak asks, but Even is already back to trying to pull into the road.

“Oh, yeah,” he says, distracted. “Absolutely. Don’t worry about that. And, I mean, I’m keeping an eye on it, but if I do have an episode despite that it’s not the end of the world, you know. It is just an episode.”

Isak just looks at him. Up until a year or so ago, the last time Even had an episode, he would get so angry at himself for slipping that hearing him talk about it broke Isak’s heart, but now: Now, who knows, because he might just be saying this for Isak’s sake, but he might also actually mean it, and if he does? If he does that’s the best news Isak has heard since Even wanted to kiss him, which is why he says what he says next:

“So,” he says. “Should we go to a parking lot?”

“What do you mean?” Even asks, out on the road and pulling up to a red light, now.

“If you’re going to teach me how to drive.”

“Oh.” Even looks at him, grin slow-dawning. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Isak says. “Why not?”

“You’re terrified of driving.”

“Well.” Isak shrugs. “That is true.” Even snorts. “So who better to do it with than you?”

“Because?” Even says.

“Well, because I’ll need emotional support, won’t I?” Isak says, and laughs when it makes Even lean over to kiss him. “And you’ve proven to be quite good at that.”

It’s just that Isak would do anything for this boy. Even fucking driving a car.

_________

On Thursday they have dinner with Even’s parents, like they’ve done most other days, as well, but this time Isak invites his mum over, too.

Even hugs her, like he’s always done, and when they sit around the dinner table, talking, and she starts telling them how the American government is surveying them for being related to the presidential family he just nods, and says, 

“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that, Marianne.”

And Isak could cry, he really could, because for so long, now, he’s been the only one left who is still treating her like a human being, but this: if anything, this is what she needs.

“It’s worse,” Even says that night, when they’re lying in bed together, as he caresses Isak’s face with his thumb, and Isak nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “She’s not doing so well. She’s– the hallucinations are worse, now. Physical, you know.”

“She should get more help.”

“Yeah.” Isak nods, then sighs. “Dad, he’s… kind of given up, I think.”

“He can’t do that. He has a responsibility, at the very least to you.”

“Yeah, well,” Isak says. “That’s not changing much.”

“But–”

“Can we not talk about it?” Isak sighs, again. “It’s just– I just want this time to be ours, you know? Talking doesn’t change anything, it just makes me remember, and–”

“You want to forget?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Even says. Then leans in, kisses Isak’s forehead and his cheeks, his eyelids, the space between his brows and, eventually, his lips. Softly, this time. Gently. “Okay.”

_________

The last day they go to a hotel.

They don’t tell Even’s parents that’s where they’re going, of course, but feed them a lie about Jonas’s place instead, because this is not something they need to know. This is just for them.

On the way there Even is the one who heads into a shop to buy the lube and the condoms while Isak waits outside, not really wanting the clerk to know this much about them. When Even comes back out he holds the bag up, grinning as he raises his brows to tease.

“Ribbed for your pleasure,” he says, and then: “No, kidding.”

Isak kisses him.

At the hotel they have a shower together first, washing each other’s hair just for the hell of it. Isak closes his eyes into it when Even massages his scalp, and he still has them closed when Even, later, uses a towel to dry his hair.

When he’s done, Even kisses his forehead, and Isak hoped it would be like this, the kind of thing that makes him feel more loved than anyone other than his mother’s ever made him feel, but he didn’t know if it would. It is, though. It is.

He didn’t know that would make him cry.

Maybe it’s that he already feels the echoes of the loss he’ll feel tomorrow, when Even’s gone again, the pain of it already so worn at the edges from the ways he’s imagined it all throughout this week when he hasn’t been paying enough attention to stop it; the pain of it already feeling more like a memory than like something to come. Maybe it’s just that his body’s so unused to getting what it wants that getting, finally, sends it into shock.

“Baby,” Even whispers, either way, into his temple, and that makes Isak smile through his tears. It’s the first time Even’s called him that.

“Sorry,” he says, but Even shakes his head before pulling him into a hug.

“Don’t apologize,” he says, kissing Isak’s temple, and Isak’s never felt safer than he does in his arms.

It’s not how he expects it to happen, then, their night, but after he’s stopped crying and managed to take a few deep breaths, and after Even’s let go of him again, they order room-service. It’s burgers and fries, and then it’s Even kissing him, all over his face, teasing him with it until he smiles. When he does, Even grins back.

“Satisfied now?” Isak asks, because it’s not hard to figure out what Even is doing.

“Yep,” Even says, either way, and Isak rolls his eyes. “Wanna give it a try?”

“Kind of have been wanting to this whole night, but by all means, if you’re ready now.”

“Shut up,” Even says, but kisses him, kisses him and kisses him and doesn’t really stop again until he’s prepared and desperate, and then: “Ready?”

“Yeah,” Isak says. “Go slow.”

Even does. His face stays pressed close to Isak’s the entire time and, when he can, he keeps on kissing him. “Like this?” he asks.

“Slower.”

“Sorry,” he says. “Sorry.” And then: “Like this?”

“Yeah. Go slow.”

“I am going slow.” Isak chuckles up at him, breathless, and Even grins down at him, kissing his temple. “Okay,” he goes on, moves again, and then: “Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Like this?”

“Yeah.” Isak is breathing heavily, now, trying to pull him closer by grabbing for his shoulders and his back, trying to be closer to him just by stroking his skin, trying not to drown in the way he wants this. “More.”

“Okay?”

“More.”

“Like this?” Isak is too distracted to speak, pressing his forehead to Even’s shoulder and panting his heavy breaths onto his skin. “Baby? Like this?”

“Yeah, like that. Keep going.” And then: “Oh– Even. Even, keep going.”

“I am.”

“Right there.”

“Okay.”

“Even. Right there.”

“I’m listening.” Isak laughs, breathlessly, looking into Even’s eyes, and Even laughs, too, pausing his movements. “You’re very demanding.”

“You’re the one who keeps asking.”

“Yeah.” Even kisses him again, his temple, his lips. “Good?”

Isak nods. “Very good.”

“Okay,” Even says, “good,” and they both giggle again.

“Yeah, good,” Isak says. “We just established that, pull yourself together, now.”

“You’re kind of making that very difficult,” Even says and, again, they laugh. “Okay,” he says then. “Okay?”

“Yeah. Keep going.”

“Okay.”

He does, then, keeps going as Isak pulls him down to kiss him, and he keeps going until their heavy breaths turn into little sounds and, then, until the little sounds turn back into kissing, again, when they’re done.

“Was that the eleven we were talking about?” he asks, and Isak laughs. His cheeks are all flushed from the extortion, he can feel the warmth of it, and he’s still a little breathless, and his whole body is tired, now, in the most wonderful way.

“Yeah,” he says. “It was.”

“That good?”

“Better than anything else. No offence, you know, to everything else we’ve done, but–”

Even laughs, and leans in to kiss him.

“We’ll definitely do that again, then?” he asks.

“Hm,” Isak agrees, nodding, and kisses him back.

By now dark has been fallen for a while outside. It’s high up, their room, and if Isak were to lift his face he’d be able to see the Oslo rooftops and the water in the horizon, but from here he can see the stars.

He’s not really looking.

Instead, he’s watching Even who’s only bathed in the soft glow from the bathroom light and the desktop lamp, the big light turned off by him earlier because it was too harsh for this kind of intimacy. He hasn’t been able to decide if he wants to stay up tonight, to not waste time, or to sleep in Even’s arms one more time, but he’s beginning to think he won’t have a choice, his eyes dropping closed and his body settling down.

The first time his eyelids go heavy Even smiles, a soft kind of thing, and reaches out to caress his cheek with his thumb. Like always. And Isak thinks he’d do anything Even said, if he said it like this: with his hands.

“I’m so happy about this week,” Even whispers, and Isak blinks out his tired smile.

“Me, too,” he whispers back.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Even touches his eyebrow, now, and scoots in closer so their noses touch. When they were younger they would sometimes sit in their own windowsills, across from each other, smoking while the universe expanded itself above them. It’s always been Isak’s favourite kind of night. They’ve always felt content together.

“I love you,” Even whispers, and Isak isn’t surprised that he says it or that it’s something he feels, but he’s happy.

“I love you,” he whispers, too. “I think you’re the love of my life.”

“I think you’re the love of mine,” Even says and this time, with reverence, they kiss.

_________

The next morning Isak brings him to the airport and kisses him goodbye.

When he comes back home his dad has left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry
> 
> don't @ me but do leave a comment if you wanna


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> long time no see. sorry. life's busy, you know. anyway, for the wait you get a treat: two chapters at once
> 
> enjoy your reading! 
> 
> (and get pumped for the first of december cough cough cough)

Isak is nine the first time he realises his mum’s not right.

She’s been religious as long as he remembers, devoted to God more than anything. When he’s a kid he spends his Sundays in church, and prays every morning, and he likes it. Her religion isn’t the problem. It’s everything else.

It takes his dad a few more years until he sits him down, at thirteen, and explains it. _Your mum’s ill and that’s why, sometimes, she says things you don’t understand_. Isak is still a child and the moment his dad’s done talking to him he goes back to his room and his Playstation. Not because he doesn’t care. Just because it’s information he doesn’t know what to do with.

It doesn’t really become real to him until he’s fifteen and she has her first bad hallucination. But when it does: When it does it’s Even he calls about it. Panicking.

“I’m coming over,” Even says, into the phone and then, five or so minutes later, he does.

He stays all night. He stays, even, when Sonja calls him and he picks up, telling her that something’s come up that will make him missing in action for a while without giving her any details, something that Isak appreciates so desperately he doesn’t know how to say it. He stays. Stays like staying is a skill, and it’s on the top of his resume.

At first he distracts Isak, or at least that’s how Isak remembers it later. The game of cards they play, the stories that Even tells him, the music that drowns out the noise of everything else. His dad returns to the room, periodically, with tea and snacks and checking-ins that Isak doesn’t know to pay attention to because it doesn’t occur to him, then, that it’ll ever be gone. It goes like that until the clock strikes evening. 

Then Even stays the night, too.

While he’s in the bathroom brushing his teeth Isak shifts his pillows out so Even will be sleeping with the good one. Later, he won’t remember why, but he’ll continue doing it after that, anytime Evens sleeps over, again and again and again.

They’ve cuddled before, and Isak’s fallen asleep with him before, but that night’s the first time they go to bed together with the purpose of sleeping in each other’s arms.

Two months or so later he’s drunk out of his mind at a party he didn’t really want to go to, having kissed a girl he didn’t really want to kiss, sitting on the curb, waiting for Even to pick him up. Even’s eighteen now, just turned so, and when he shows up he does it in a car.

“I brought a bucket for you,” he says. “Don’t throw up in the car, it’s my mum’s.”

“Not gonna throw up,” Isak says, but he's slurring his words. Even just looks at him for a long time, as he struggles to get into the car. Then he drives.

When they reach their road he pulls in in front of his own house, parking the car where it always is, and they sit there with the car-light turned off, lit only by the streetlamps outside, for a long time. Even’s hands never leave the wheel and Isak never stops watching them.

It’s the first time Even’s been on a break with Sonja. It makes Isak that much more desperate for him.

“You shouldn’t be doing this,” Even says, then, and Isak looks at him, or tries to, as much as he can through the drunken veil between him and the world. “This is stupid, and irresponsible, and you don’t have to punish yourself, and you especially don’t have to kiss girls when you don’t like them.”

“Oh,” Isak says, chuckling without humour for the first time around him, because that’s rich coming from the only person he actually wants to kiss. “You know what you are?”

“No,” Even says. “I don’t.”

Isak reaches out to touch his shoulder before saying anything. Then: 

“You’re an asshole.”

He doesn’t stay to see how Even reacts. Instead he turns away and tries, without success for a while, to open the door of the car, before he stumbles out of it. He’s unsteady on his feet, slow to make his way to his own front door, but he makes it, eventually. When he does Even’s made it, too, and then he just waits, as Isak struggles to fit his key into the lock.

“Can you–?” Isak pushes the key into his hands. “Can you just–?”

“Yeah,” Even says, and slips the key into the lock easily. When it’s open he hands the key back to Isak and pushes the door half open for him. “You know,” he goes on. “I’m just worried about you.”

Isak kisses him.

This is the actual first time they kiss, and Even does nothing about it until he stops it.

“No,” he says, pushing Isak gently away, and Isak is so fucking angry at everyone, actually, even Even. Even him, so much so that maybe he hates him, actually. Maybe he hates him.

Maybe that’s why he throws up, in the bushes by his front door, and maybe that’s why he starts crying. Maybe there’s a reason why he lets him hold him anyway.

“Please come inside,” he says, into Even’s chest, through his sobs. “Please–”

“Okay.”

“I don’t want to be alone, I can’t stand it.”

“Isak,” Even says. “I said okay.”

“I just–” Isak tries, and if Even wasn’t holding him up he’d have sunk to his knees on the ground. He almost does, anyway. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I know.”

“I’m just so _sad_ –”

“I know,” Even says, and this time it sounds like there are tears in his throat, too. “I’m so sorry, Is. I’m so, so sorry.”

Isak doesn’t say anything to that, because it’s useless. It doesn’t mean anything, not right now. But, once he’s stopped crying, he lets Even help him inside, and then he lets Even get him a glass of water and a pill for the headache he’ll almost certainly feel tomorrow, and then: then he gets Even to come to bed with him.

It’s not until they’re lying there, across from each other in his bed, looking into each other’s eyes, that Isak tries to kiss him again. Even shakes his head and pushes him away, gently still, but Isak tries one more time anyway.

“Isak,” Even says, stopping him before their lips meet this time. “It’s not polite to keep going.”

“Can’t you just–?” Isak says. “I just want to forget. I just–”

“I understand, okay?” Even says. “But you don’t use other people for that. You can’t do that to me, alright? And I can’t let you do it to yourself, either.”

Isak’s never been scolded by him like this before, and he’s never felt younger than he does right then, eighteen year-old boy in his bed who refuses to do anything but card a hand through his hair like his mother does it. He’s never felt younger, or more fragile, or more ready to break.

“Will you hold me?” he asks. “At least? Will you just–? Hold me?”

“Yeah,” Even says, nodding and rubbing his back, now, before he scoots in closer and pulls Isak into his chest, kissing his hair when his arms sneak around his waist. “Of course I’ll hold you.”

Isak falls asleep in his arms that night, crying for the first and last time about it all. The next morning Even’s gone with just a texted heart in Isak’s phone left behind him, and two weeks later he’s back together with Sonja.

It’s the first time he breaks Isak’s heart.

_________

When Isak first reads the note his dad’s left on the kitchen counter it’s Jonas he calls. Not Even.

“Hey,” Jonas says when he picks up. “Even’s flown off?”

“My dad’s left.”

There’s a pause. Then: “What?”

“My dad, he just walked out,” Isak says, and it strikes him, somewhere in the back of his head, how he’s retelling it like it’s already old news. Like maybe he’s feared something like this happening so much that standing in it now feels more like déjà vu, or reliving a memory, than it does a surprise.

“Where are you?” Jonas asks.

“I,” Isak says, and it’s then that the reality of the situation hits. “I just came back from the airport. I just came back from– I–”

 _I was just the happiest I’ve ever been_ , he thinks. And now–

He grabs onto the kitchen counter that the note’s been left on so hard his knuckles go white.

And now.

_________

**(2) Missed calls: Even <3**

**Even Bech Næsheim – 14.43**  
yo pick up  
anyway just got back to my room after landing and guess what? the boys are ecstatic for us  
miss you already  
call me when you see this  <3

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 08.17**  
morning bby  <3  
you okay?

**(1) Missed call: Even <3**

**Even Bech Næsheim – 10.21**  
makeisakreplytotheloveofhislife 2k17

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 17.57**  
yo?

**(3) Missed calls: Even <3**

**Even Bech Næsheim – 21.22**  
you’re worrying me now

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 23.43**  
Is? is anything up?  
talk to me, whatever it is  
remember we’re best friends first and everything else second

**(4) Missed calls: Even <3**

**Even Bech Næsheim – 12.34**  
isak just pick up

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 02.32**  
i love you?

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 03.12**  
that wasn’t a question  
i do

**(1) Missed call: Even <3**

_________

Later, all he’ll remember from the first week is the blur of people passing by him.

Jonas comes first. If Isak remembers correctly he never really leaves, missing school and obligations instead to stay with Isak and his mum who, at this point, is seeing people and hearing voices almost every day.

Next it’s the rest of the boys, too, Mahdi and Magnus who don’t say much to him because he’s not saying much back, but who talk quietly to each other in a way that sometimes grates on Isak’s nerves so much he wants to throw them out and sometimes feels like the only thing keeping him grounded in some sort of reality.

Jonas makes him play board games with them, Mahdi helps him cook and is the only one not letting him win, which he appreciates more than he can say, and Magnus talks to his mum, reminding her to take her pills and helping to ground her in some sort of reality, too. And Isak:

Isak is paralysed, and Isak thinks time is taking its sweet fucking time starting on healing any of this and, actually, Isak thinks time has never moved as cruelly slow as it’s moving right now, forcing him to live every painful second of this like it’s an eternity long. 

Isak is using all of his energy to keep getting out of bed every day and Isak has built walls before, but he’s never built them like this.

“You know, I’m not actually that good at preparing chicken,” Mahdi says, one day a week and a half or so in, when they’re all in the kitchen trying to cook something Indian together, and Isak, for the first time, gets off his chair and walks up to Mahdi’s side.

“I’ll do it,” he says, but Mahdi sends him a sceptical look.

“You don’t know how to do it either,” he says.

“So? I said I’ll do it.”

“Bro–”

“Can you just fucking,” Isak says, and everyone looks at him. “Let me do it?”

It’s never been uncomfortable before, all of them being here, but it is now, thick and heavy in the air, and Isak knows that he’s like his dad sometimes, so close to snapping all the time when he’s under pressure. He hates that about himself.

“Okay–”

“I’m sorry,” Isak says. “Look.” He runs a hand over his face. “I’m sorry. “

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Isak?” Mahdi says, catching his eye, and Isak feels so guilty, like he always does when his anger flares out of him. Feels guiltier, still, because they’re all being so kind to him, and yet– “It’s chill.”

Mahdi smiles at him as he steps away from the cutting board, giving Isak room. When Isak, after a moment, moves to the spot he just left, his smile stays as he nods.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay.” He sighs. “Okay.”

_________

 **Even Bech Næsheim – 21.20**  
isak please please please pick up  
i heard, okay? i know  
i’m so so sorry  
i love you  
please just pick up

_________

 **Isak Valtersen – 00.32**  
I’ll never forgive you for this

 **Pappa – 11.26**  
I’ll give you money if you need to move out

 **Isak Valtersen – 12.53**  
No

_________

Isak is fourteen the first time Even cuddles him, and they’ve barely known each other for more than two months.

It’s just what he’s like. Tactile boy who touches everyone he knows, leaves his hand on people’s shoulders when he talks to them, hugs everyone who wants to hug him hello, reaches out to touch people’s arms with glee when they make him laugh.

It’s just what he’s like, but it’s not what Isak’s used to.

They’re on the couch in the living room of Even’s house, watching a movie, and it happens naturally, just the two of them leaning in close to chat about it when Isak says something that makes Even laugh and Even reaches up to squeeze his shoulder and pulls him in with it.

Isak goes pliant in his arms almost immediately. He’s never fallen asleep to a movie before, thought of it as something only parents does, but that day he does, too, waking up half an hour later to his drool on Even’s shirt and Even’s bemused smile shined at him.

Even’s always made him soft, then. Even’s always made him feel soft, and Even’s always made him _feel_ , every little emotion he has amplified by Even’s presence, and it’s felt so good to feel alive, but now:

He just can’t afford that, now.

_________

The next time Even calls him, he picks up. It’s been two weeks.

“Hi,” he says.

“Isak?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, thank God,” Even says, and he sounds so surprised. So relieved. And Isak feels guilty for a lot of things right now, but most of all he feels guilty for this. What he’s done to Even. What he’s about to do. “You’ve scared the shit out of me."

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s– this is not about me,” Even says. “I’m just so glad you picked up. Where are you? And how? How are you?”

“I, uh,” Isak starts, but has to stop to wait for the lump in his throat to pass. Hearing Even’s voice, it’s killing him. Remembering everything and missing him and– and missing him. God. It’s never hurt quite like this. “I’m home.”

“And?” Even says, and Isak has to close his eyes when he breathes. He’s not on his bed, although it’s late. He’s at his desk. Staring at Even’s empty room.

“I,” he says, but has to stop again to wait for another lump to pass. Has to look to the ceiling to keep his tears back. “I can’t do this.”

“Oh, Is,” Even says. “I’m so sorry. But you’ll be okay, I promise.”

“No, I mean–” The first tear’s fallen now, and he bites his lip so hard it hurts. Until now he’s been in shock, but this: this wrecks his whole goddamn body with pain. “Missing you hurts so much,” he whispers, the truth of it so damn striking it can’t come out louder than that.

“I’ll come home.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” Isak says. He sniffs, but his tears still sit in his throat. “I just can’t do this.”

“Isak,” Even says, and now he’s sounding desperate, too. “What do you mean _this_?”

“You know what I mean.”

Even exhales, shakily. 

“ _Baby_ ,” he whispers, and that’s what starts Isak sobbing. He tries to muffle it in his palm, but he doesn’t quite manage. He can’t stop his shoulders from shaking anyway. “I’ll come home.”

“No.”

“Why won’t you let me fix this?” Even says, sounding desperate, now. “You have to let me try.”

“Everything is just so horrible right now,” Isak says. “I just don’t– I don’t have anything to _give_ , Even, I can’t– I’m barely hanging on and if I have to keep missing you it’ll kill me.”

“I’ll come home.”

“No.”

“ _Why_?” Even says. “Why, baby, please?”

“I don’t want you to.”

“Why not?”

“Please,” Isak begs, and they’re both crying, now. “Please just enjoy these last few months of your trip. Please.”

“Without you?” Even says, desperate, still, and Isak knows he’ll always remember this as the day he broke both of their hearts.

“You’ve done it before,” he says. “You’ll be fine. You were fine for so long.”

“I love you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Isak–”

“I’m so sorry, Even, I’m so– I have to go, okay? I’m sorry but I have to go.”

“No–”

“Yes, I do. I’m sorry, but I do.”

“Isak–”

“I really have to. I’m so sorry, okay? I love you, too, I love you, but I have to– I can’t– I just have to go–”

“Isak,” Even says.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and then: “Bye, Even.”

He hangs up.

He cries all night until his head is pounding and he thinks he has nothing left. Then he dries his eyes, drinks some water and goes to sleep. When he gets out of bed the next morning it’s with shoulders that are squared.

It’s the last time he cries for a long time.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> numero two. remember to read chapter four before you read this

Isak is sixteen the first time Even has an episode around him.

It’s summer, hot July, burnt sienna orange everywhere, and Even’s been so happy for a while. It’s only a little under half a year ago since he kissed Even and broke down in his arms, but Even forgave him, immediately, or maybe Even just didn’t mind that much. It comes in waves, and Isak doesn’t know if he’s a sad person, now, or just a sad sixteen year-old, but he’s sad, a lot.

Not right now though. Not when Even is taking him out on the town, to the beach, to a café, laughing at most of the things he says like he’s just actually that funny.

“Here,” Even says, when they’re on their way home, and stops in the middle of the street to take his shoes off. He holds onto Isak’s shoulder to steady himself and, after, hands the shoes over to him. “Can you hold them?”

“What on earth are you doing?” Isak asks, but he takes them. Of course he takes them.

“What do you mean?” Even asks, skipping ahead so he can walk backwards and still be looking at Isak. “This is the best day of our lives, Is, why would I wear shoes?”

“This is the best day of our lives?”

“Any day is.”

“Watch out,” Isak says, reaching out for him, and Even stumbles into the lamppost anyway but just laughs about it, going straight on:

“And you’re beautiful today.”

“I’m– what?”

“Anyway, I have this really cool idea for a murder mystery, right?” Even says, and he’s always been quicker than Isak at everything, but this is too much even for him.

“What?”

“Murder mystery, keep up. I’m thinking that, what do we love in movies? Withheld information. And who knows the least information? Children. No, wait,” Even says, and Isak is just now beginning to be struck by the sense that something is wrong. “I have another idea. A murder mystery, but it’s a metaphor for grief. No, wait, scratch that, it’s a drama now, following the week directly before and after not a murder, but a suicide.” And then: “Maybe that’d satisfy my urge to do it.”

Isak’s entire world stops as Even keeps talking.

“What?” he says, and it comes out quieter than he wants it to. “What did you just say? Before, what did you just say?”

“The–” Even says, looking at him, actually looking now. “Oh, the suicide thing? I’m not going to do it, don’t be silly. I’m on the top of the world now, why would I stop that?”

“You just said–”

“Who cares what I just said?” Even says, walking on now, and Isak is starting to be scared by it. “It’s what I’m saying now that matters.”

“Even,” Isak says, a begging, because suddenly this feel entirely out of the realm of what he can handle. “Even, can we please go home? Please?”

“I thought we were already going home?” Even says, and Isak doesn’t know what to do now either, so, instead, he reaches out to take Even’s hand. He clings to it the rest of the way home as Even keeps talking.

Outside their houses Even turns to him, quiet now, and cups his cheeks with his palms. Isak holds onto his wrists to feel the steadily beating pulse in them, a little bit desperate.

“How old are you now?” Even asks, and there’s something in his eyes that Isak doesn’t understand at all.

“How old am I?” he says. “You know how old I am.”

“Sixteen,” Even says, like it means something.

“Yeah.”

“Hm.” They look at each other. “Maybe that’s old enough,” Even says.

And kisses him.

It’s the second time they kiss and this time it’s Isak not doing anything, and Isak is beginning to think maybe they’re doomed to always be like this.

“No,” he says and Even, immediately, pulls away. “What are you doing?”

“I thought you wanted to, too.”

“I– You’re dating Sonja right now, did you forget?” Isak asks, as Even’s hands slip off his cheeks, and he’s so _confused_ , he just wants things to make sense. He just wants Even to make sense.

“Oh, she’ll kill me for this,” Even says.

“Cheating?”

“No– that wasn’t cheating.”

“You just kissed me.”

“She’ll kill me for going crazy again.”

“What?” Isak says, his whole world shifting on its axis once again. “You’re not–”

“Boys,” Even’s mum calls from the doorway to their house, and Isak’s never been as relieved to see her as he is now. “Come inside, you two.”

“Hi, Mamma,” Even says, dragging Isak up to his house by their once-again-intertwined hands. He kisses her cheek, then, like he’s always done. And Isak doesn’t understand anything.

Not until she tells him.

“What’s happening?” he asks, when she's sent Even upstairs with a hand to his cheek and a certain look, telling him to wait or join as she chats with Isak. His choice. Which he reacts to by going. “What’s going on?”

“Listen, sweetheart,” she says, and it’s the way she reaches out to hold onto his lower arm, lying on the kitchen counter, that he’ll remember later when he thinks back on this. It’s her, trying to do something to steady him. “Even is ill right now.”

She tells him everything Even hasn’t told him, that day. She says, _it’s called bipolar_ , and, _he only started his medication half a year or so ago_ , and, _he’s having a very hard time with it but nothing bad’s going to happen to him_ , and, _he’ll crash soon and then he’ll be depressed_ , and, _I wouldn’t step in and tell the story for him normally, but you’re so young, honey, and it’s so much less scary when you know what’s going on._

Says, _he’s just your friend. Remember that. He’s not your responsibility, no matter how much you care about him. He’s ours, and his own._

She’s right, of course, but for a brief moment it frightens him so much that he didn’t notice, that he can’t even pay proper attention to the boy he loves, and it angers him so much that Even didn’t tell him, that he stays away and stops replying to his texts.

It’s the wrong choice, and it’s the first time he’s made a decision and had to grabble with the fact that it wasn’t the right one. 

After four days of avoiding him, he’s back outside Even’s bedroom, knocking on his door. Five minutes later he’s back in his bed. Even hasn’t left it for three days.

“I thought this was it for us,” Even says, watching him from across the pillow. For once it’s Isak who’s carding a hand through his hair, and Even who’s closing his eyes into it.

“No,” he says. “You’re my best friend.”

When Even watches him Isak lets him, making sure that the fondness he’s always felt is on his face, now, and not shut away somewhere deep in his chest. He’ll lay every secret bare for him if that’s what it takes to make him smile.

It works. After a moment Even does smile, tiny little twitch of the lips. He presses their foreheads together, and Isak lifts his chin and moves his head, slowly, to caress the bridge of Even’s nose with the tip of his own.

“I kissed you,” Even says, a whisper, now. The breath of it ghosts over Isak’s lips.

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Isak says, and then, holding onto Even’s jaw, right under his ear, with the gentlest touch he has: “You know I want to kiss you, too.”

“Not like that.”

“No,” Isak says. “Well. It’s okay.”

“Okay.”

Isak nods. It’s like everything else in the world disappears. There’s just them, now, his hands touching Even’s face and Even’s hair and Even’s breath hitting his skin again and again and again. There’s the pain, in both of them, and the refuge this bed allows them to take from it. 

So what if it’s only for a moment? A moment is enough.

“Can I kiss you now?” Isak asks, hoarse whisper, and Even’s eyes flit back to him.

“Isak,” he says. “It’s too soon. You’re too young, and I’m too angry, and– I can’t be something that’s good for you right now. I don’t even know how to be good for myself.”

“Hm,” Isak says, and runs the tip of his nose across the bridge of Even’s again. “We don’t have to. But that wasn’t a marriage proposal, you know.” Even snorts, short but genuine like he’s so surprised that it overrides his sadness, and that makes Isak smile, too. “I just thought it might be nice, you know. One time where we both agree on it.” He finds Even’s eyes and holds them. “And then we’ll wait until later to do it again.”

Even smiles, again. Fond, now. When Isak fixes the hair at his temple he reaches up and holds onto Isak’s wrist, gently. And then he scoots in closer.

“Okay,” he whispers, the whole thing ghosting over Isak’s lips again. “I’d like that.”

“Okay,” Isak says, too, and ghosts the tip of his nose along the length of Even’s now, up and down for a while until he slips in, slowly, with his palm cupping Even’s jaw. And kisses him.

It’s more than one kiss, in the end, but it’s not more than a kiss. At first it’s all Isak but then, after the first one, Even cups his cheeks, too, and kisses back. 

Later, Isak will think of this as their first kiss, because it’s the first time they kiss each other at the same time. It’s slow, then, and it’s gentle, and Isak’s barely kissed anyone but Even at this point, but he doesn’t think anyone’s ever been as vulnerable together as this is. As fragile and as comforting, at the same time.

“That was nice,” he says, when they pull apart, and Even smiles into his skin, shaking his head, before he pulls him in for a hug. Isak hugs him back, breathing in his scent. And when they pull apart from the hug, too, he leans up to press a gentle kiss between Even’s brows, just like his mother used to do to him when he was younger and needed comfort.

He knows, then, with a conviction he didn’t know he could know anything, that, no matter what happens, this is something they’ll always come back to. The two of them.

_________

Two months after their phonecall, Even comes home.

_________

**Isak Valtersen – 09.54**  
you’re coming back today, right?

**Even Bech Næsheim – 10.33**  
this is the first text you’ve sent me in months  
i don’t even get a hello, how have you been?

**Isak Valtersen – 10.34**  
hello, how have you been?  
you can say no, but if you’ll have me, i’d really like to come to see you at the airport  
can i?

**Even Bech Næsheim – 10.52**  
okay

**Isak Valtersen – 11.02**  
okay?

**Even Bech Næsheim – 11.11**  
isak  
of course you fucking can

_________

It’s Jonas who knows Eva who knows Noora who’s in London, just like Even, but who knows Eskild, who: has a room.

On one of the days after the rest of the boys have left him and his mum alone again, then, Isak sits with her, dinner table and late evening, and says, “Mum?”

“Yes, baby?” she says, and that makes him have to close his eyes not to cry, like he’s doing a lot lately.

“I,” he tries. “A friend of mine has a room available right now and offered it to me and… I was thinking of moving there.”

“Oh,” she says.

“But I also don’t want to leave you alone. I don’t–”

“I’m not alone,” she says, and that makes him want to cry even more.

“ _Mamma_ ,” he says, so desperate it’s nothing but a whisper. “They’re not _real_.”

“Oh, I don’t mean them,” she says. “I mean you.” When Isak looks at her, she reaches out to card through his hair with one hand, as she places the other over her heart. “You’re right in here. All the time.”

He looks at her. And then, instead of him crying, they hug.

_________

This time, at the airport, Even’s mum is rubbing his back between his shoulder blades as they wait. 

This time, when Even steps out of his gate, it’s with Elias and Mikael next to him, and he’s laughing at something Mikael said before he’s turning his head to watch them. This time it’s his parents he hugs hello first but, even this time, he smiles at Isak in a private sort of way once he, eventually, turns to him.

“You know this one,” he says, to the rest of the boys, who he’s introduced to his parents when he’s hugged them. “Isak.” And, to Isak, he smiles. “The surprise.”

Isak shakes their hands, first, even though he’s met Elias before, and is relieved when, afterwards, Even’s parents asks the boys about their flight home and Even touches a hand to his elbow to get him to stay behind.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi.”

“So.” Even watches him. They’re close enough that Isak has to lift his chin to watch him back. “Why are you here? Why now?”

Isak swallows. Even’s just looking at him, but when Isak reaches out to hold onto the handle of his suitcase, too, so their hands touch, he doesn’t pull away.

“I just wanted to see you,” Isak says. “You’re my best friend.”

“Really?” Even raises his brows at him. “We’re still best friends?”

“I didn’t say that,” Isak says. He’s trying to be careful not to assume anything. He’s decided that, this time, he wants to do it right. This time he’s only going to take what he’s been given. “I just said you’re mine.”

Even face shifts into something pained. When he watches Isak, Isak lets him look. 

The moment later they’re hugging.

“Don’t be a fucking idiot,” Even says, and Isak smiles, relieved, into the part of Even’s shirt that’s covering his shoulder, getting on his toes to hug him back. “Of course you’re mine, too.”

“I’m sorry.”

Even just sighs when he pulls back, shaking his head a little, before he reaches out, gentle smile on his face, and fixes Isak’s hair.

“You look so much older, now,” he says, and Isak leans into his hand.

“I feel so much older, now,” he says. Again, Even sighs. And, again, as always, Even caresses a thumb across his cheek.

“The boys are coming back to the house,” he says then. “You should join, too.”

“You want me to?”

“Yeah,” Even says. “I want you to.”

“Okay, then.” Isak reaches up to touch his cheek, and Even cups the back of his hand. “I will.”

“Okay,” Even says.

“Okay.”

Isak doesn’t know how to find his way back to his old self again, the one he was before pain broke him open from the inside out, but he’s begging for something in the universe to be kind enough to let him find his way back to this. 

It’s treacherous, hope is, but he’s hoping. Hoping with every last bit of what he has left of it.

”Okay.”

It better be enough.

_________

**Even Bech Næsheim – 21.18**  
so what now?

**Isak Valtersen – 21.19**  
so now we’re best friends who actually speak to each other again?

**Even Bech Næsheim – 21.19**  
just best friends?

**Isak Valtersen – 21.20**  
no  
not just best friends  
but maybe friendship should come first?

**Even Bech Næsheim – 21.20**  
so  
slow this time?

**Isak Valtersen – 21.21**  
<3  
yeah  
slow this time

_________

So. First: Isak invites Even over to his new place.

He’s been living here for a good month now. And it’s been good. It’s been exactly what he’s needed, actually, a place of his own away from everything, and it’s worth it, even if it means he does have to accept his fathers monetary contribution to his life. It’s been good.

When Even comes over he introduces him to Eskild first, who says, “ _He’s_ a handsome boy,” to which Isak rolls his eyes and Even laughs. After, he pulls Even into his room by his wrist and, then, sits cross-legged on his bed, watching as Even moves around the room, looking at it.

“I won you this,” he says, at Isak’s bookshelf, turning around with a cartoon figure in his hands that he did, indeed, win for Isak at a fair when they were fourteen and sixteen, and Isak nods. “And this,” Even says, turning back to the shelf. “This is a picture from when we went skiing together last year.”

“Yeah,” Isak says.

“I’m all over this room.”

Isak shrugs. 

“Well," he says. "You’re all over my life."

“Yeah, well.” Even turns his back to him as he places the picture back on the shelf, too. “I thought maybe you’d have erased me from it.”

“No,” Isak says, and it breaks his heart knowing that that is how Even understood any of what happened. “Of course not. Why would I?” Even shrugs, turning back to him, and Isak looks at him. “Even,” he says. “You’re the best good thing in it.”

Even breathes. 

“Isak,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“You kind of broke my heart.”

He says it, but he still comes over to the bed and sits, cross-legged, across from Isak. He says it, but he still lets Isak reach out for his hand, and he still lets Isak dip down, and press a kiss to the palm of it.

“I know,” Isak says. “I’m sorry.” 

Even looks at him, then back to their hands. Isak runs a thumb over the back of his.

“Even,” he says, a whisper now. “I made the wrong choice. I thought it was right when I made it and, I don’t know, maybe it was, but– I’m so sorry. I’ve wished I made a different one almost ever since.”

“Really?” Even asks.

“Yeah.” Isak nods. “Yeah.” And then: “You’ll really try me one more time?”

“Of course,” Even says. “More than one more time, if that’s what it takes, even though I hope it’s not.” 

Isak nods. Even watches him.

“I’m not mad at you, you know,” he says. “I don’t– I understand. I’m the one who pulled away all the time when we were younger, anyway, I did it first, so I– I just wish–” He sighs. “No,” he says, then. “It doesn’t matter now.” 

Glancing up, then, he sends Isak a smile as he squeezes his hand. 

“I’ve just missed you.”

“I’ve missed you,” Isak says, and Even smiles.

“Good,” he says, and Isak smiles, too. Chuckles a little, even, until Even joins him, like they’ve always done when they’ve felt so much it’s been a little bit ridiculous.

“Good,” Isak agrees, and Even rolls his eyes. Sitting up straighter, then, Isak pulls his hand out of Even’s grasp. “So,” he says, holding out that same hand for a shake. “Start over?”

“No,” Even says, but reaches out to take his hand anyway. “Begin again.”

Isak smiles. And Isak loves him more than anything.

“Okay,” he says, and squeezes Even’s hand. “Begin again.”

Even squeezes his hand back. “Cool,” he says.

“Cool,” Isak agrees. And: “And let’s get it right this time.”

“Yeah,” Even says, nodding. “Let’s get it right this time.”

They smile at each other and, when they let go of each other’s hands, Even falls back onto the mattress. A moment later Isak crawls up to him, joining him. Turning his head first, Even smiles at him, before he turns the rest of his body, too, and scoots in close enough to have their foreheads pressed together as he cups Isak’s cheek.

When he tries to slip in closer, Isak shakes his head. Even pulls back to watch him.

“No?” he asks.

“We said slow.”

“What’s slower than this?”

“ _What’s slower than this_?” Isak repeats, and Even grins. “You’re too used to me being easy for you.”

“Sorry?” Even says. “When, then?”

“I don’t know,” Isak says. “You could woo me a bit first.”

“ _I_ could woo _you_?”

“You’re the older one,” Isak says, and Even grins again.

“God,” he says. “You’re the most demanding boy I know. Fine.” He clears his throat as he schools the smile out of his face, and Isak watches him, not bothering to do the same. “What’s a guy like me got to do to get a guy like you to go out with him, then?”

“Nice,” Isak says.

“Good enough?”

“Mm-hm.”

“So?” Even asks.

“I’ll go out with you,” Isak says, and Even’s smile breaks out again. Looking at Isak’s lips he moves in once more but then, as if he recalls himself, moves back again. 

Isak laughs.

“Okay,” Even says then, sounding a little pained by it, and Isak is torturously endeared by that. “Slow.”

“Yeah,” Isak agrees, still grinning. “Slow.”

_________

**Isak Valtersen – 22.22**  
yo! when’s the next gathering?

**Jonas Noah Vasquez ¬– 22.23**  
why is this in the old groupchat?

**Even Bech Næsheim – 22.23**  
i’m welcome again

**Magnus Fossbakken – 22.24**  
oh, thank god  
i’m tired of navigating more than one  
it’s a whole job, man

**Mahdi Disi – 22.24**  
dude

**Magnus Fossbakken – 22.24**  
no, fuck that. can’t we all just be honest with each other now?

**Isak Valtersen – 22.25**  
i think mags is right

**Even Bech Næsheim – 22.25**  
that’s new

**Magnus Fossbakken – 22.26**  
oh, he likes me so much now  
we’ve bonded over being mamma’s boys

**Isak Valtersen – 22.26**  
i don’t think that’s very accurate to what happened actually but sure  
you can have this one

**Magnus Fossbakken – 22.26**  
<3

**Jonas Noah Vasquez – 22.27**  
anyway, what’s happening with the two of you?

**Mahdi Disi – 22.27**  
yeah, man. give us an update

**Even Bech Næsheim – 22.27**  
Is?

**Isak Valtersen – 22.28**  
we’re taking it slow  
i guess since we’re going on a date we’re technically dating

**Even Bech Næsheim – 22.28**  
this is an upgrade to me  
you guys are the best wingmen

**Isak Valtersen – 22.29**  
shut up  <3

**Magnus Fossbakken – 22.29**  
we are!!

**Mahdi Disi – 22.29**  
dude’s right

**Isak Valtersen – 22.30**  
i’d forgotten how annoying you all are when you spur each other on

**Magnus Fossbakken – 22.30**  
you love us

**Isak Valtersen – 22.31**  
i love everyone but you  
( <3)

**Jonas Noah Vasquez – 22.31**  
i’m glad you’ve worked it out guys  
it’s nice to be together like this again

**Magnus Fossbakken – 22.32**  
i agree

**Mahdi Disi – 22.32**  
same

**Even Bech Næsheim 22.32**  
me too

**Isak Valtersen – 22.33**  
yeah  
<3  
me too

_________

A few days later Even is ringing on his doorbell to pick him up. They’re going out.

When Isak comes down to the street, Even is leaning against his mum’s car, and when he sees Isak, he smiles. It’s winter, and snowing, and he looks good in the yellow streetlamp light with white falling around him and pink on his cheeks, and Isak’s in love with him, and Isak’s been in love with him, probably, since the first time they talked.

“Wow,” he says, when he comes in closer.

“Wow?”

“Well,” Isak says, gesturing around them. “You brought a romantic atmosphere and everything.”

Even grins. “Well, I am bringing out the big guns,” he says.

“Hm.”

“Anyway.” Even gets off the car, gesturing to it. “So I made my mum lend me this, all for you, which I think I should get points for.” Isak snorts, and Even smiles back at him before he goes on: “And, uh– At first I was thinking of taking you to the amusement park because I read once that you should take your date out for something that causes adrenaline. Apparently I’ll make them associate all the good hormones with you, and they’ll think it’s love.”

Isak grins.

“But I thought maybe we were done with outside influences,” Even goes on. “So instead I thought I’d take you to a haunted house and scare the shit out of you– no, I’m kidding,” he finishes. And Isak gets on his toes and kisses him.

“Sorry,” he says, pulling back almost immediately, but Even is grinning at him. “That one didn’t count, our date hasn’t started yet.”

“What?” Even says. “How’s that fair? If that’s in the rules I should get one, too.”

Isak shrugs. 

“Too late now,” he says, treacherously endeared by the offended look on Even’s face until, after a moment more of staring, Even leans in to kiss him back anyway. Isak cups his jaw when he does, and lets him.

“There,” Even says, after pulling back. “Now we’re even.”

“Hm,” Isak says, and kisses him one more time. When Even touches his cheek and kisses him back he knows they’ll be there for a while. And they are, hands in each other’s hair and legs, tangled together. They are.

“So,” he says, when he pulls back, drying his mouth with the back of his hand, as Even clears his throat. “Where were we going?”

Even laughs.

_________

They go to an observatory because Isak’s always loved stars, and when they’re back on the street in front of Isak’s flat, sitting in the car, Isak leans in over the gearbox and kisses him again.

It’s just that he’s been looking back over his life a lot lately, and it’s just that he’s been struck by how devoted Even’s always been with his love for him, and it’s just that he’s been reminded that, throughout all of his life, the thing he’s gotten the most right has been being Even’s friend.

“You said slow,” Even says, and Isak laughs through his tears, and Even squeezes his hand. “Come on,” he goes on. “I’ll walk you to your door.”

When he does they kiss there, instead, foreheads pressed together whenever they pull apart to look at each other, and smiles on their faces. Even has both of his hands on Isak’s cheeks, and it still makes Isak pliant and weak in the knees for him, but he likes it, now, and it’s on purpose that he lets it, anyway. He’s not crying anymore, but he wouldn’t mind too much if he started wanting to.

After Even’s kissed him one last time and walked backwards back to the car, keeping eye-contact with Isak the entire time, Isak fishes out his phone and dials his number. Even rolls the window down to frown at him before he picks up but, then, as always, he does.

“Hi?” he says, and Isak thinks he’s the best person in the whole world.

“So, guess what,” he says. “I was on a date tonight.”

In the car, Even grins. 

“Oh?” he says, and Isak can hear the smile in it.

“Hm,” he says.

“Was it good?”

“Very good.”

“Hm,” Even says, tilting his head at him now. “Did you get a kiss?”

Isak grins as he answers.

“Yeah,” he says, “but just one,” and Even laughs. 

“Oh?” he says. 

“Yeah,” Isak says.“I’m in love with him, actually.”

In the car, Even’s expression turns sober in a fond way. 

“And, uh… I kind of wish he hadn’t gone home.”

“Oh?” Even says, quietly.

“Yeah. I kind of wish he’d stayed and gone to bed with me.”

“Isn’t that awfully fast?” Even asks.

“Actually, I think it’d be perfect.”

There’s a second. Just a second. But then Even withdraws to roll the window up before he turns the car off, and Isak gets to watch him get out of it. And then Isak gets to watch him come closer. Smile on his face.

“So,” he says, when he’s back by Isak’s side and Isak has to lift his chin to watch him. “I was on a date, too, actually.”

“Yeah?” Isak says. “Was it good?”

“Yeah,” Even says. “Best date I’ve ever been on.” 

Two minutes later Isak’s back hits his bedroom door as it closes behind them.

“You look good in this shirt,” he says, helping Even unbutton it. “I like you in it.”

“You look good in yours, too,” Even says, when they help each other get Isak’s off, too. “I like you in everything you wear.”

They kiss all the way to the bed. Isak’s pulling Even with him, and Even is going, and they’re keeping close as much as they can. When they reach it, Isak pulls Even on top of him.

“Slow, baby,” Even says, into their kiss. “Slow.”

Isak hopes with every little part of him that he’ll be able to make Even feel as loved as this. That he knows that, for every wrong choice Isak makes, he’ll go back and try to make the right one until, hopefully, one day he’ll make the right on the first time around, just like Even deserves.

“I love you,” he says. “I love you, too.”

“Too?” Even asks.

“Yeah.”

“I haven’t said it,” Even says, but Isak shakes his head.

“You’ve been saying it all night,” he says. “You’ve been saying it ever since I was fourteen.”

“Isak.” Even watches him. Then kisses him. “You’re the most romantic boy I know.” And then: “You’ve been saying it, too.”

“Good,” Isak says. Catches Even’s eye. “It’s true.”

_________

In that particular dark month where he’s just moved in with Eskild but is, still, treacherously heartbroken by everything, he goes to visit his mum for dinner.

While he’s there he finds himself stopped in his tracks in front of their picture wall, looking at the framed photograph of him and Even on the ski trip they went on with Even’s parents when he was seventeen. In it they’re grinning, cheeks pressed together as they’re looking into the camera, and Isak remembers the way Even had an arm around his waist when his mother took it and, better yet, the way he leaned in after and pressed a kiss to Isak’s cheek so quick it felt like being given something he’d normally steal.

While he’s looking at it, running a fingertip over the frame of it, his mum comes up to join him. She looks between him and the photograph for a moment before she takes it down off the wall and hands it to him.

It makes Isak cry. The first time since he broke them up.

“He’s a nice boy,” she says, reaching up to card a hand through his hair, and Isak just lets his tears fall, silently. “The two of you, you’re lucky to have each other.”

“Mamma,” he says, heavy with his tears, and now she’s caressing his cheek with one of her knuckles and then with her thumb. “Mamma.”

“I knew you were in love with him when you were fifteen,” she says.

He sobs. And then, for the first time in a while, it’s her who’s holding him when they hug.

“I think I screwed it up,” he says, into her shoulder. “I think I really screwed it up.”

“Maybe,” she says. “But if you did you can always try unscrewing it again. I think he loves you back enough to let you.”

It goes dark outside as he stands in her arms, with her rubbing his back, and cries it all out. It goes so dark you can see the stars, and by the time he’s done crying it feels like one or two of the weights on his chest have lifted; like some of the clump of pain in his throat has fallen off and left it. And when he inhales, then, it feel easier.

“Can I have this?” he asks, after drying his eyes, holding the picture in his hands like the treasure that it is, and she nods.

When he comes back to him room he places it on the shelf that’s exactly as high as him. Right in the centre.

Impossible to miss.

_________

The morning after their first date Even cooks the both of them breakfast in the kitchen and when Eskild walks in, Isak introduces him as his friend who he’s also dating. Three weeks into Even being back they go to Isak’s mum’s house, and Isak re-introduces Even to her as his boyfriend, first time he’s said it to anyone other than Even himself, and both she and Even smile.

After they finish with each other that second first time Even touches Isak’s face and Isak touches Even’s back, and they smile at each other.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” he whispers, and Even turns his head to kiss the palm of his hand.

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“You think we do this in universe?”

Isak nods. “I do,” he says. “I think I always find my way back to you.”

Even kisses him, slow and soft and sweet, and when they pull apart Isak runs the tip of his nose over the bridge of Even’s. Between them their breaths meet, gravitating towards each other just like the two of them do.

“I think you’ll always be the one I return to.”

“That’s nice,” Isak says.

“Yeah,” Even agrees. “That’s nice.” 

"You're not sad it took us this long?"

Even shakes his head. "No," he says. "It's okay. I always knew someday I'd be with you. Waiting was just part of the proces, I think. I didn't mind." Isak smiles, again, and Even is the greatest person in the world, he thinks, and Even is right. “Either, way, it's the two of us, isn't it? Just you and me.”

Isak tilts his head fondly as he keeps smiling, and watches it when Even smiles back.

“Yes,” he says. “Just you and me.”

_________

The first time he sees Even, the very first time, he’s standing on his front steps watching the moving van pull into the driveway of his neighbouring house and, then, watching Even step out of it, grin on his face so large it makes Isak involuntarily smile, too.

He doesn’t know he’ll make a thousand wrong choices throughout it all, or that he’ll also keep on realising that and going back to try and make the right ones. He doesn’t know that Even will let him keep giving it a try until the both of them get it right at the same time. He doesn’t know that it’ll be nothing but a few months before he thinks of Even as the best thing in his life.

He doesn’t know any of that then. But he walks across the threshold.

And then he walks through the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> –the end–
> 
> thanks so much for reading and following along with this! tell me what you thought in the comments? i'd love it if you did


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